


Our Time

by brandidy



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: A lot more smut now, Alternate Universe, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Character Death, F/M, I am so sorry, I wrote this all last night, Jealous Kylo Ren, Kylo Ren Angst, Kylo Ren is Ben Solo, Miscarriage, Panic Attacks, Rey Needs A Hug, Smut, This turned out so angsty, a bunch of angsty build up for smut basically, also, heartbroken rey, rey has some underlying issues, sad shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-13 01:33:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 40,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14739584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brandidy/pseuds/brandidy
Summary: Her body was off balance, the weight beginning to be too much to handle. Rey leaned over onto the back of the couch to maintain stability, trying to get her breathing under control.“What?” Was all her pathetic brain could manage.Ben, on the other hand, looked carefree. As if the stress he had been under for months had been taken from him, bundled together, and strapped haphazardly onto her. He didn’t even bother to look at her when he repeated it. “This isn’t working.”-----OR Rey had assumed her and Ben were great, until he ends things with her without any warning. He had promised never to do that, and yet, he did.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this all last night as a way of getting through writer's block for my other story I started for these two. I didn't proof read it, so try to ignore any mistakes if you can. Thanks!

It was as if the blood fled through her veins like a pack of wild stallions that had been startled, leaking through every pore on her body and leaving her cold, uncirculated, and empty. Her right hand felt heavy, like the weight of the world was somehow thrusted into it in a matter of moments, and now she was bearing it all alone. Her body was off balance, the weight beginning to be too much to handle. Rey leaned over onto the back of the couch to maintain stability, trying to get her breathing under control.

“What?” Was all her pathetic brain could manage.

Ben, on the other hand, looked carefree. As if the stress he had been under for months had been taken from him, bundled together, and strapped haphazardly onto her. He didn’t even bother to look at her when he repeated it. “This isn’t working.”

“Ben,” Rey chanced a step forward, only for her heart to completely shatter in her chest when he paralleled the movement. “We… We’ve been together for two years.” Her breathing was growing sporadic, uncontainable. “ _Two years_ , Ben!”

He nodded, watching the turned off television in her apartment. Not theirs, no, never theirs. All the times he had declined moving in with her were now filling her thoughts and her stomach with lead. “Yes, two years. We got together when you were eighteen, Rey. You haven’t even lived your life.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?!” She was shouting now, but she couldn’t help it. This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not like this. “I-I have lived my life! I’ve lived it _with you!_ ”

“Well, maybe _I_ haven’t gotten to live _mine_!”

The pain that stabbed through her chest was almost tangible, she was certain somehow Ben had been able to feel it. Like he would have felt it and immediately apologized, falling to his knees and whispering ‘sorry’ and ‘I didn’t mean to yell at you’ and ‘I’m not going to leave you, not like them’.

Instead, his large and sure feet took him further away.

It was difficult to make sense of everything that was happening through her tunnel vision. She could see him leaning down to grab something. Something large. A bag? As if he had left enough stuff at her place for him to fill a fucking bag.

“Have a good one, alright, kid?”

The next thing she knew, she was dry heaving on the floor behind her couch, shirt sticking to her damp skin and sending a chill through what nerves were still cooperating with her. She still felt like the world was lying on top of her, suffocating her, drawing each breath from her lungs by piercing them with a shovel, but her right hand was no longer holding the brunt of the nauseating load.

On the floor beside her, a small brown box that contained a pristine grey button sat.

 ---

“He came by the office today,” Finn whispered, running his fingers through the stringy hair on her head that was perched on his lap. She hadn’t been the one to move it. Didn’t even remember him coming into her apartment, but from the two glasses sitting on the coffee table- one half empty and one untouched- she assumed he had been there awhile. “You should have seen Poe, he about killed the guy.”

Rey was thankful her friend was aware she wasn’t going to answer him. Wasn’t able to. Not yet at least. It hadn’t even been a week.

Or had it?

She couldn’t be sure.

“When Leia finally got Ted and Devon from accounting to pull him off, she was ready to throw him out herself,” Finn sucked in a deep breath and Rey knew he had just remembered something. She always knew what Finn was thinking, even when she couldn’t think herself. “Leia’s not at all upset with you. You know that, right? She said you can take off as much time as you need.” His fingers tensed in her hair, then the pad of his thumb ran along her forehead. “I’ve never seen her so mad at him before.”

Not sure how to tell him that Rey wasn’t ready to even listen to a story that contained the man she had loved as a main character, she turned further in his lap and tried to convey the feelings through her hazel eyes. ‘ _Please stop,’_ she thought to him.

“I’m sorry, Muffin,” he conceded and she knew he was _finally_ getting to the point of all of this. Of why he had even brought the man up in conversation with her in the first place. “He was saying a lot of bullshit, but basically he wanted one of us to give you this.”

Dark fingers reached forward, leaning over her face to sit something down on the table. When he moved back and Rey’s eyes sprang open like a timelapse video of the sun rising, she saw her spare apartment key on the glass.

She was in Finn’s tight hold for at least fifteen minutes before she realized she was sobbing.

 ---

Exactly seventeen days after that man walked out of her apartment without even a glance in her direction, Rey deleted his number from her phone, along with the contact photo of the two of her on his back by the beach, laughing over his shoulder while he tickled her under the knee.

She still knew it all by heart of course, but she was hoping that with time, that too could be deleted.

 ---

One month had passed before Rey walked back into Leia Organa’s office, not prepared for the sympathy leaking from the too familiar eyes. Before she could walk right back out, the older woman had her arms wrapped gently but firmly around her, pulling Rey to the floor as she cried what she swore would be the last tears she shed for _him_.

Eight minutes and twelve seconds into their encounter, Rey began pleading for her job back, promising she would never abandon her position again. Not for him, not for anyone.

Eight minutes and fifty-six seconds into their encounter, Leia had smiled and pointed at a large stack of papers with a sticky note that simply read ‘ _Rey Return Work’._

 ---

After eleven months and two days, Rey handed her old apartment keys back to her land lord and picked up her last bag, carrying it in a tight grip down the stairs as she put it in the back seat of Finn’s car.

“Ready?” he asked, eyes trained on her with a careful expression, as if she might bolt.

She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t considered it.

But instead of throwing the door back open and fleeing into the home she had grown acquainted with, she threw an arm carelessly out the window, letting the sun brush her fingertips. “Ready.”

One year and… Three months? Or had it been four? Rey stopped keeping count some time ago.

She was alone in her and Finn’s- and sort of Finn’s girlfriend, Rose- apartment when it happened.

Poe had just dropped her off from their lunch date (his words, not hers- although she was slowly growing accustomed to the idea) when her phone buzzed in her pocket. Rey was just about to change, so she threw the device onto her bed without checking it and instead walked into her closet to find the large t-shirt Finn had let her borrow in years before. After throwing that over her head, Rey stepped out of her pants and sauntered into the kitchen to take out a glass and a bottle of red wine from the wine rack she had made them.

She finished half a season of a survival tv show Finn had got her to start watching before she decided to text him and let him know she had finally given in. Reaching beside her, it took a moment before she remembered where the damn thing was.

Rey stood beside her bed and opened the message, or _messages_ since it seemed the sender had sent more after she had left it in her bedroom.

**_ Unknown [9:23pm]: heyy kid _ **

Falling. She was definitely falling.

The springs of her mattress groaned in protest when Rey fell into a heap amongst her blankets, phone kept carefully in view to continue reading.

**_ Unknown [10:41pm]: yuu probalby don’t care to hear from me. I ruined evrything _ **

**_ Unknown[10:46pm]: I don’t even no if you hav my number anymore _ **

**_ Unknown[12:05am]: I misss u _ **

**_ Unknown[12:38am]: I’m also drunk butttttt _ **

**_ Unknown[12:38am]: yea _ **

Something akin to bile rose in her throat before it immediately clenched shut, hindering her breathing.

She almost opened a message to send to Finn to tell him what had happened, but thought better of it when she recalled the twinkle in his eyes while telling her about the date he had planned with Rose.

Instead, her fingers moved without her permission, seeking out the number she knew she shouldn’t message.

**_ Rey[12:50am]: I miss you. Come over. _ **

Less than twenty minutes later, Rey was opening the door an ushering the man in, not allowing herself to think it through before she launched herself at his lips.

“Are you sure, Rey?”

God, she wished he didn’t ask that. Guilt flooded her stomach and tried to wrestle its way up her chest before she squashed it.

“Just fuck me, Poe,” she whispered into the shell of his ear. “Please.”

The next morning, Rey woke to the buzz of her phone somewhere far away. Grumbling in a half state of awake, she rolled over and tossed her arm out to grab the other pillow on her bed and put it on her face to block out the sun, but instead of hitting fluffiness, her hand slapped against warm skin.

Fighting back panic, Rey shot straight up in her bed and tried not to cry when she looked down beside her and saw Poe’s peaceful sleep face buried partially into her comforter. He hadn’t left?

Had she wanted him to?

It was a dumb question. If Rey could ever stopped being so fucked up, _so lonely_ , she would realize that Poe was a great man and could only be good for her. All her life, she had been terrified of letting people in, of letting them get close to her. Yet, Poe had done it without her even noticing. This could only be good.

It had to be.

It was two days later before she opened the other message _he_ had sent. Poe had left the room to get them both coffee after he had stayed yet another night, and her hand had shot out to her phone so fast she was sure she almost threw it across the room on accident.

**_ Unknown[9:03am]: Sorry _ **

She didn’t forgive him.

 ---

Poe and Rey had been official for around two months when she saw _him_ again.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t considered he would be there. In fact, for days she had felt something growing in her stomach that told her he would in fact be making an appearance. It made sense. She’d be surprised if he missed his mother’s fifty-fifth birthday party.

God, what age did that make him now? Thirty-one?

She briefly wondered if his age would be more obvious to her now that her heart wasn’t desperately trying to lessen their age-gap. When she had been eighteen, all she could think of was how she could appear a few years older so that this stupid son of a bitch would take her seriously, and then by the end of their next meeting, she had been attempting the same thing for completely different reasons.

Her questions were answered when she rounded a corner, her arm linked through Poe’s, and there he stood.

He wasn’t aimed in her direction, to which Rey was thankful for, but she’d know those broad shoulders anywhere.

He had grown his hair out, it now brushed the seam of his shirt collar, hanging in loose waves, making him look like some sort of rock star instead of the CFO she had heard he became. His suit, on the other hand, was so nice, so familiar.

_Too_ familiar, now that Rey thought about it.

Her eyes fought against her, refusing to obey as they sought out the middle of his blazer where his top button should be fastened, but predictably was not. She didn’t allow herself to look for the missing button, knowing full and well that it wasn’t there. Wasn’t anywhere near him right now. The damned thing was hidden at the bottom of a box that had obtained a thick layer of dust within the last year, a protective layer that told her she wasn’t spiraling. She didn’t intend of letting that dust get kicked up into the air anytime soon.

As if he could feel her gaze, the tall man turned just his upper body, and suddenly Rey was on fire and freezing at the very same time. She felt tears prick her eyes, but despite her body instinctively trying to lead her from the scene, from _him_ , she only looked back. Her grip on Poe tightened, and she felt him glance down at her, then follow her gaze to the dangerous lion sizing him up in the middle of the classily decorated living room.

“Rey, let’s go,” Poe told her, his glare still fixed.

Rey didn’t respond, but let her eyes move from the man and travel to Poe, her boyfriend but even more than that, her _friend_. She took the first step, and together they headed toward the kitchen where Finn and Rose were laughing against the counters.

 ---

Poe was drunk. No, Poe was completely plastered. She had made him sit down after the third time he tried to make out with her on the back porch, and now he was passed out and snoring in the wicker chair. Rey stood at the other end of the patio, her arms crossed over her chest as she watched coy fish swim in the pond a few feet in front of her.

“So,” the deep timbered voice of a man she once knew spoke from behind her. “You and Dameron.”

Likewise to how Rey had known he would be at this party, she had somehow also known he would ask this question at one point during the night. It had been written in fine print across his face when he looked at her and Poe a few hours earlier in the living room, had been so obvious it made her toes curl.

Only now, she realized he had no god damn right.

“What are you doing out here?” She bit out, almost afraid of what the anger in her meant.

It was several moments before he answered, and when he did, it was more so through his actions than his actual response. Something warm covered her shoulders just before he spoke. “Are you in love?” It wasn’t spoken viciously, not like how she might ask it if the roles were reversed. It was kind, barely a whisper on his pink lips.

Almost accepting, in a way.

 ---

All of a sudden, it was just too much.

Rey wrapped a hand tightly into the expensive cloth, unsheathing her shoulders with a rage so hot, she no longer felt the cool air. She threw the fabric in his face, half surprised when he didn’t make to catch it before it hit him and fell into his waiting hands. “You have no _fucking_ right to ask me that question, Be-“ Rey cut herself off before she spoke his name. She couldn’t do that yet. After all this stupid time, she still wasn’t ready for that. “Hell, you have no right to ask me anything! And,” Rey stepped closer to him, her eyesight growing more accustomed to the night to where she could make out the features of his face. He wasn’t angry like she wanted him to be. That only pissed her off more. “You have no right to be wearing this stupid,” her index finger stabbed into his sternum, “fucking,” another jab, “suit!”

The son of a bitch didn’t even fight it. “You’re right,” he told her. He was being complacent, giving into her way easier than the old him would have. The old Ben, _her_ Ben, would have screamed right back in an unhealthy but passionate display.

She hated it.

She hated it because it gave her no fuel to burn with, no kindle to broaden the eager flame licking at her insides. All she had was sparks and a lack of oxygen.

“What are you doing out here?” Rey asked again, this time with substantially less bite.

He also looked less lively, almost resigned. Like a man on death row accepting of his penalty. It still pissed her off, but a very, very small part of herself was impressed. “I was worried when I saw you two leave out here,” he spoke before she could, somehow sensing that her fire was burning bright once more. Probably from the tightening of her jaw and the grunt in her throat. “I know you don’t like being alone with drunk people, Rey.” His eyes shot up, searching through the stars ever-expanding above them. “Or being alone at all, for that matter.”

_Then why did you leave me?_

“I need to go,” Rey suddenly whispered, spinning on her heels and heading back toward where Poe lay sprawled in his chair.

“Rey-“

“No!” She yelled, turning her body so quickly, her red dress twirled around her calves. “ _You_ left _me_ , you _big_ dumb **asshole**!” There were tears streaming down her face now, breaking the promise she made to herself to not cry over him, but she couldn’t care less. Let her foundation break up, let her mascara run, she didn’t care! Anything to get it through his thick skull that he didn’t get to be in charge of the situation again. Not this time. “That means _I_ get to decide if we ever speak again, and now it’s _your_ turn to not know or understand.”

The sentence had a hundred different meanings, each one implicitly implied in the heavy air between the both of them. Not know why, or how, or what she had done wrong. Not understand why he had lied to her, promising he would never leave her alone like the queue of people before him. How he could move on so easily, looking so unconcerned as he ripped her heart out and took a bite from it right in front of her, making sure she would never have all the pieces to put it back together again. What she had done wrong to screw them up so badly that he couldn’t even explain any of this to her afterwards.

“I’m leaving now.” Rey stood before Poe, looking down at the man. “ _We’re_ leaving now.”

Her ex-lover, ex-friend, ex- _something_ stood beside her. Not right beside, but close enough to make her palms sweat and her mind wander.

“Please drive safe,” he told her gently.

“Fuck you, Ben Solo,” Rey responded just as quietly.

 ---

It didn’t take long for Poe to question her. Someone had told him that Rey and Kylo had been seen talking outside while he slept less than twenty feet away, and when he confronted her about it, she hadn’t answered him.

It wasn’t as if she felt guilty, because she didn’t. She had done absolutely nothing wrong in the situation. In fact, it was somewhat of the opposite. Instead of feeling afraid of his reaction, she found she didn’t care. It felt more personal than she was willing to share with him. She told him as much, and he didn’t take it well.

“You’re telling me that you being alone with your ex-boyfriend isn’t my concern? Are you aware that we are in a relationship, Rey?!” Poe asked, his voice growing as he spoke each word until Rey felt herself cringe at the strength of it. She didn’t think he’d ever touch her, Poe was too kind. But the fact that she was instinctually unsure was telling.

“I did nothing wrong. But the things I confronted him about, I’m not going to explain them to you.” Rey was sitting in a chair in his living room as he circled her. They had gotten back only minutes prior from a movie he had been wanting to see, but she had known he was holding something back the whole night. As soon as he asked about Ben, she knew that was the cause of his weird attitude.

Poe finally stopped, falling to his knees in front of her. “I love you! Did you know that? Did you know that I’m so in love with you, and have been for years? Did you know how much it hurt me to watch you fall apart because of that piece of shit?!” His hands clasped onto her knees, not noticing the flinch that shook her body. “This isn’t jealousy, Rey,” though they both knew it in part was indeed jealousy. “This is me trying to take care of you, because I fucking _love you!_ ”

“I,” Rey stared at her fingers intertwined over her clenched knees. “I think we should break up.”

 ---

The phone barely rang twice before the person picked up.

She hadn’t even said anything. Just breathed a little too heavily into the phone, but that seemed to tell enough.

“Where are you?”

“313 North Oak Road.”

“I’ll be there in less than ten minutes, don’t move.”

 ---

She didn’t speak as he drove her home. Had only opened her mouth to give him her new address before clamping it shut and breathing forcefully against his window to watch it fog up.

When the vehicle came to a complete stop, Rey didn’t move.

They sat in disgustingly copious silence, neither one speaking for what felt like hours, days, months, fucking _eons_. All Rey knew was that she was somehow content. Her body felt peaceful and almost forgiving. Like this would be a good time to forgive him and leave him behind in a past that she no longer had the rage or the strength to keep up with.

Then he spoke and a forest fire ripped through her body like it was paper.

He had barely gotten out a syllable before Rey spun in her seat and flung her hand out. It hit him in the chest, not hard enough to hurt him, but enough to let him know she was falling apart in the seat beside him. She continued blindly throwing her fist at him, tears rolling hot and syrupy down her cheeks as she began screaming, “Why? Why, why, why, why, why?!”

“Rey, stop!” Ben shouted, grasping onto her tiny wrist to cease her movements. He may have stopped her physical assault, but the verbal was just beginning.

“Why?! Why did you lie to me?!” Her chin burrowed into her chest as she violently shook her head. “Why did you stop caring?! How long had you stopped loving me before you left?! Why are _you even here right now?!_ I fucking hate you, Ben Solo! I hate you so much!” Somehow, the confession quietened her, her tears slowly decreasing until they were just ghost tracks on her flesh. “I hate you.”

“You _used_ to hate me. You may still hate me, I don’t know. But you definitely used to.”

“What?” Rey asked, confused and scared and tired.

Ben tightened his grip on her wrist ever so slightly before completely releasing them, to which Rey immediately pulled them back to herself. “I made you miserable. You never went out to see your friends anymore, you hated going to my apartment with me, you had been gone for your days off for weeks before I decided to end it. I thought you may have found someone else, someone better.” He turned so that his eyes caught hers, and she knew what he was doing. Trying to make her see his side. “I didn’t stop loving you,” he said as if he was telling her the sky was blue or her hair was brown. “If anything, I loved you so much I needed to get you away from me before I snuffed out what little light you had left in you.”

There was no way. No way what he was saying was true.

That couldn’t be the reason.

Something so… Misunderstood.

“You’re even more cruel than I ever thought you were.”

The tall man sputtered at that, his chin moving a break-neck speed to face toward her as something close to horror shifted into his gaze. He had expected Rey to understand, to grant him forgiveness and absolve him of his sins so he could move on.

She’d rather die.

“You’re a cruel bastard, and I don’t think I’ll ever forgive you for it.” Tears. This time, finally, they weren’t her own. In another life, she’d feel torn at seeing them. But in this one, she only felt relief. “I saw my friends every day at work. I had lunch with them every day. I wanted to spend time with you. And I hated going to your apartment because I wanted you to move into mine- we were always at mine anyway. I thought if I complained about yours enough, you would start to hate it too and end your lease.” A laugh escaped her, and Rey realized with something close to awe that it was the first real and unabated one that she had uttered in nearly two years. “I even cleaned out half of the closet and two drawers for you in the bathroom.”

A strangled noise struggled to make its way out of Ben’s throat, and he leaned closer to her. “No-“

“I was gone on my days off because your birthday was coming up and I was driving three hours every Saturday to the old mechanic shop I worked at to make your present.”

Big hands cradled Rey’s once-lovers face, the long digits trembling as they parted his hair. “Oh god.”

“It was a wrought iron coat rack that had five sides and a place to sit your stuff while you got ready to leave in the morning. There were two key rings, one for you and one for me.”

“Rey, baby. I didn’t know,” Ben’s body was shaking as he reached out to her. “I fucked up. I’m so sorry, Rey. I fucked up so badly.”

“I was going to take you back to the conference room we first met at when you interviewed me, I had your mother’s permission and keys.” Rey turned to him, letting his shaking fingers touch and caress her face. “I was going to let you fuck me on the table, and when we were happy and satisfied, I was going to give you the button that we had to cut from your suit the second time we met- when I got my hair caught when I leaned down to help you pick up the paper you dropped? I don’t know if you remember that.”

Ben flung forward, his head resting against Rey’s stomach as he pulled her closer, wrapping his arms around her delicate frame. “Of course I remember.”

“Don’t you see, Ben?” she asked, letting her hands fall onto his back. “It was just our time.”

“No,” he denied, pulling her deeper into him. His head rose, and with lips as unsure as her entire body, he kissed her. He was desperate and frantic, sucking her bottom lip between his teeth and slithering his tongue against her own. Rey was positive her body was going to implode on contact, yet it just felt like coming home. A dark, unfurnished and unlit home, but a home nonetheless. “I left you all alone, didn’t I?” Ben asked, pulling his lips away to search her eyes. “I left you like they did.”

Rey didn’t respond, wasn’t sure how to.

“I’m a fucking idiot,” he spoke, and Rey decided she didn’t want to hear it any longer.

When she kissed him back, it was chaste and quick. Just a press of flesh against flesh, then she pulled away to look at him. His eyes were still closed, lids trembling. In that moment, Rey realized she had never seen him look so scared.

Her own fingertips lifted to press against his face, tracing the lines she had once known so well. Lips that curved into a comforting oblivion, jaw that was strong but unbalanced, ears that stuck out just a bit more than normal. It was like reading your favorite book again and trying to forget that you hated the ending.

“Rey,” he moaned against her thumb that had tugged slightly on his lower lip.

“Ben.”

His eyes opened, and his lips covered the spots of her neck that Rey had forgotten existed. The moans escaped her without permission, but as time went on, she couldn’t find it within herself to be bothered by them.

He was so much larger than her, but was somehow able to pull himself nearly all the way into her seat to hold her against him as his hands ran up and down her body. When his fingers brushed against the taut peaks of her breast, Rey threw her head back against the seat and cried out. Determined, Ben dropped his head and took one between his lips, sucking through the fabric of her shirt to create a painfully wonderful feeling.

“Ah, Ben, stop,” Rey spoke, and Ben beseechingly gave one last suck before backing off. The image of his head against her stomach, looking up at her from beneath a wet spot on her shirt was something that would be engrained in her memory, and would likely make more than one appearance in her fantasies.

“What do you want, Rey?” He asked, and it was the most loaded question she had ever heard.

Whatever she wanted, though, she knew she couldn’t have it in this car.

“Come on,” she finally answered, opening the door on her side and stepping onto the pavement. She barely had both feet on the ground before Ben was beside her, shutting the door for her. It was strange, and she by no means even remotely forgave him, but she almost felt cared for.

As soon as they made it into her and Finn’s apartment, she was on him like glue. He caught her when she launched herself into his arms, wrapping her shapely legs around his muscular frame with ease as he walked to a section of closed doors. Rey’s lips were preoccupied, so she instead just grunted at him until he came to the right door, which he threw open vehemently and kicked shut as soon as they were inside.

Rey wanted him to throw her on the bed.

She wanted him to remind her this was just passion, unhealthy passion.

She _needed_ him to remind her why this couldn’t work again. Why it didn’t work in the first place.

Ben, instead, laid her down almost motherly, his hand silently escaping from beneath her neck while he trailed the other up her thighs and leaned over her to place a warm kiss on her stomach.

His fingers danced down her neck, thumb rubbing against the hollow of her throat. Rey reached forward, grasping his hand too tightly and pulling it from her.

“Just fuck me already,” she demanded.

Ben smiled down at her. “No.”

He lowered his hands, letting them scrape up the bottom of her shirt and pull it above her head. Before moving on her pants, he descended upon her, sweetly sucking on the flesh right above her bra.

“Ben,” she whined, shifting her hips beneath him as the wanting grew within her lower abdomen.

“What is it, Rey? Tell me.”

His long fingers swiftly unbuttoned her pants, slipping beneath the waist on either side of her to slowly pull them down her legs, revealing inch after inch of skin to his hungry eyes. Once he got them past her knees, he sat up, lifting each leg individually to remove the pants from them, leaving kisses on the tops of each foot.

“Please, just fuck me.”

They both heard the pleading within.

Ben lifted her legs, wrapping himself with them as he slid between her thighs. “No,” he responded once more and kissed her collarbones.

“Oh god.”

His fingers formed trails of fire as they lowered across her stomach, hesitating above the band of her underwear.

“Please,” she begged.

His fingers continued beneath the cotton and brushed through the dark curls he remembered too well, one finger slipping between to dip into welcoming warmth.

“Fuck, baby. You’re so wet,” Ben panted against the pulse raging in her neck. His finger traced her lower lips, then circled around the small but powerful nub that had began to grow taut.

Her cries rang out in his ears, hips quivering and lifting beneath his touch as she wrapped her fingers up in his hair and pulled. Ben smiled into her, sucking on her neck deeply while she was too busy to notice.

“I’ve missed your voice screaming out when you’re about to cum for me, Rey,” he whispered after releasing her skin with a pop. “Can I make you cum?”

“Fuck!” She arched her back as his index finger dipped lower, finding her entrance with ease and slipping into the welcoming warmth.

“Can I?” He asked, thrusting his finger profoundly into her, rubbing his growing length against her thigh when he felt the sucking sensation within, beckoning his digit further and further like a siren’s call.

“Yes!” she screamed before licking her lips.

Ben smiled, sinking his teeth down on her shoulder and shoving his finger in and out quicker, loving to watch her body react to each movement. “Yes what?”

She released his hair with one hand, throwing it over her eyes as she quivered on her pillow, her eyes finally meeting his own. It was almost as wonderful as the fingers going in and out of her. “Ben, please, please, please make me cum.”

Satisfied, he lowered his head further and pushed her bra down with his free hand, taking her dusky nipple between his teeth while rubbing the other with his thumb. If that wasn’t enough, Rey was no longer coherent when he added another finger inside of her, adding speed and strength behind each push of his fingers until he felt her walls close around him and she began to cry out gibberish, lifting her hips against his hands erratically.

“Oh, that’s it, baby,” Ben whispered, flattening his tongue over her nipple. “You’re so fucking tight right now, fuck.” He watched in awe as her whole body ceased movement, falling apart on the bed in front of him with her mouth hanging open.

Ben leaned forward quickly, fingers still moving within her, and latched his mouth onto her own. The kiss was sloppy and wet, but he couldn’t think of anything better.

Rey heard more than saw him removing his clothes and her underwear, but when he scooted between her thighs once more, she pressed herself against him and found nothing but hot and hard skin. “Are you going to fuck me now?” She questioned, reaching behind her back to remove her bra.

“No,” he answered, rubbing the head of his cock through her drenched folds, watching with amusement as her body spasmed when it passed over her sensitive clit. “I’m not going to _fuck you_ , Rey.” Without warning, he slid into her, still in disbelief at how tight and amazing she felt. Rey moaned long and loud, pulling him further towards her so that they’re breath mingled. “I’m going to worship you and love you, exactly how I should have been doing for the last year,” his hips shot forward, meeting her own, “six months,” again, skin slapping skin, “and seven miserable fucking days.”

She didn’t respond to that, couldn’t. Her body was being elevated to a state of bliss unimaginable at the feeling of his cock filling her so deeply she was sure he was touching organs.

Instead, she keened as he made her body shake, laying kisses all over her goosebump ridden body while he continued to talk her through the most amazing feelings. “You’re taking all of me so good, sweetheart. You feel amazing,” he lifted her thigh, dragging her leg over his shoulder and groaned at the new angle. “Did he make you feel this good, Rey?” It was a question, but one that demanded an answer.

The question shocked her, but the angry and desperate way he asked it made her respond with a needy voice she didn’t recognize. “No, never,” she managed between loud moans that shook the air.

“Did his cock make you scream?” He grew faster in his motions, now fucking her despite what he said. Rey wasn’t complaining however, instead scratching her nails down his back while trying to comprehend what he had just asked her.

“Ah, ah, ah!” Rey cried out, opening her eyes to look into his own. She saw sadness there, and fear. Of what, she didn’t know. But it hurt her to see it there. “No, Ben! Only you! F-fuck, only ever you!” He shifted his hips and hit the spot that Rey hadn’t felt in months, leaving her gasping beneath him like a fish out of water.

“Oh, god baby are you close?” Rey barely nodded her head, and Ben scooted closer, pushing his knees beneath her and lifting her hips up to hit deeper. “Oh-Oh Rey you’re so tight. Cum all over me, baby girl.”

She didn’t need to be told twice. Immediately, her body clenched and she screamed his name so loudly she was sure she was going to have noise complaints from her neighbors.

Ben let out a throaty groan, pounding into her with abandon at the feeling of her so wet and tight around him. Rey felt tears leaking from her eyes, but paid them no mind as a second orgasm creeped up on her before she had really even finished her first one. She reached down, rubbing violently at her clit to try and feel that bliss again before Ben knocked her hand out of the way and took over, making Rey go limp on the bed beneath him.

“You’re mine,” Ben ground out between gritted teeth, one hand curled around the back of her neck while the other rubbed her off. “ _Mine. No one else can fucking touch you like this._ ”

Rey nodded, only half aware of what she was agreeing to.

“ _Say it, Rey._ ”

“I’m all yours!” She finally screeched, throwing herself into a sitting position and wrapping her small arms around his thick neck as she came again, covering their lower halves in her juices.

Ben thrusted once, twice, three times before sinking himself as deep as he could get and releasing into her while attaching his lips to her shoulder.

He held onto her even when he felt all of the strength leave her body.

Gently, with the care he wished he had shown her for the past year and a half, Ben put her down on the bed before crawling off of her and curling around her, looking on with pride at the several marks he had sucked into her skin. His hand rubbed her stomach, planting wet kisses on her chest.

Rey turned to look at him, looking small and confused. It broke Ben to know he had caused this much pain inside of her. He vowed to never fuck up that badly again. “This can’t happen again, Ben. You hurt me too much.”

Pulling her closer, he hooked one leg over her thighs and covered her cheek with his palm. “We can talk about it tomorrow.”

“No,” Rey yawned, burrowing deeper into his side despite her words. “You need to go.” The words stabbed through his heart, but then he remembered that he had more than a lot of making up to do. Of course she wouldn’t forgive him just from one good- _great_ \- round of sex.

“In the morning,” Ben answered, trying to remember if she would want eggs and bacon, or pancakes more.

“The morning,” she agreed, and before he knew it, she was breathing evenly beside him.


	2. When We First Met

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Ben's history comes to light, and Rey makes a decision on her relationship with Ben.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this one's a doozy. I really had intended to leave that as a one shot, but you guys asked for more, and I had more ideas, so I delivered. I decided to conclude it with a third chapter, but this second one is plenty long to keep you busy. It's also painful, so please tread carefully and feel free to stop and read it more later.
> 
> Also, trigger warning, and SPOILER (Don't read below if you think it won't effect you): 
> 
>  
> 
> There is a miscarriage that occurs, please be cautious and understand that it is integral to this part of the story.

_He wasn’t nearly as attractive as that guy Finn had led her to believe. While Finn had walked her to the conference room that would serve as her interview space, he tried his best to prepare her for the man who would be asking the questions._

_‘Don’t be fooled by his looks,’ he had said, disdain clear in his voice. ‘The man’s hell incarnate.’_

_Rey mistakenly had only heard the part about him being cute when the other half of the warning was clearly more valuable of information. If only she had been listening, she wouldn’t be fuming from her ears currently._

_“You have absolutely no experience in our field, you’re not going to college, and you’re only position you’ve held before this was with a junk yard.” Ben Solo, the fucking bastard, spat out parts of her life from his full lips like it was bile climbing up his throat. “Not exactly the kind of person we’re looking for, now is it?”_

_Rey could hardly breathe. Who thought having this guy lead an interview was a good idea? Was she just supposed to roll over like a beaten dog and wait for him to kick in her the metaphorical stomach? She clearly wasn’t getting this job, but she’d rather play seven minutes in heaven with a chainsaw before she let him think she was submissive to his terrible attitude._

_“I think you clearly need someone like me.”_

_Ben’s eyes widened before he cocked his head and smirked. “Elaborate,” he said, and immediately Rey noticed it was a command._

_Scooting forward in her black pencil skirt, Rey slapped her palms down on the table, watching as his eyes flickered to them before slowly trekking her form until he found her eyes, fire blazing. “Someone needs to knock you on your ass every once in a while.” She matched his smirk from before, proud of herself when his was struck from his lips. “I can be amazing at my job, and be that person as well. In fact, I can’t imagine anything else I’d rather do.”_

_By the time she had finished, Ben had contained his surprise, and instead put on a rather cold exterior. Somehow, it was more unnerving than the irritated one from the beginning of their interview._

_“You’re barely eighteen. What on Earth makes you think that you could handle it?”_

_Rey wasn’t sure he was strictly speaking about the job anymore, and something along the lines of a thrill passed through her. But he had said “barely eighteen” and that threw her off. For whatever reason, him saying her age out loud made her uncomfortable. Like she was suddenly a child once more. Rey didn’t want to be a child in front of this man. She wanted to be an equal, someone who could call him on his shit._

_“Determination, Mr. Solo,” Rey smiled, picking up her binder she had brought to take notes and carry her resume. “I have more determination that you would know what to do with.”_

_Standing, Rey heard his chair scrape back as he awkwardly stood his full height before her. “Did I conclude this interview?” He asked, leaning forward to try and catch her gaze, but Rey was slowly running out of her courage. The fact that she was going to continue to be unemployed was rocking her now, leaving her to mentally begin planning out how she would continue to live. She has exactly $258 dollars, and she could get a deal to sleep in the nearest motel for $80 a week, and she could make $20 work for food a week, so- “Excuse me? Did you suddenly lose your hearing?”_

_Rey glanced up, realizing she was just standing in front of him with a dazed and probably pitiful look on her face. “Thank you for your time today. I’m sorry I’m not what your company is looking for.” His lips parted, but Rey was already making her way to the door, not wanting to hear it._

_“So, how’d it go?” Finn asked as she walked passed his desk, and Rey’s eyes fell, trying to hide the frustrated tears._

_“What was it you said? Hell incarnate?” She laughed wetly, wiping her eyes._

_Finn’s brows dipped and he quickly walked towards her. “What the hell did he say to you?”_

_Rey shook her head. “No, no. It was nothing he said. He was an asshole, but he was completely professional the entire time. I was the one who let his demeanor get to me.”_

_“Then why are you crying?” Finn questioned, confused._

_She was about to answer, when her stomach began growling. Rey already had breakfast that morning before leaving, but she supposed that a granola bar wasn’t going to suffice that day._

_“Look, it’s almost my lunch break. I’ll treat you to some burritos, okay?”_

_Rey nodded, looking down at Finn’s hand as it gripped her forearm and pulled her towards the elevator. When they spun around inside, Rey looked out at the hallway they had just left and saw none other than Ben Solo leaning against a wall that was near where Finn’s desk sat. Had he… Had he been listening?_

_She supposed it didn’t matter even if he had been. She’d never have to deal with Ben Solo again in her life, and Rey was more than content with that._

* * *

**_Unknown [4:08pm]: Interview Wednesday at 11:30am. Bring that determination you talked about, but feel free to leave the insolence at home._ **

_Rey gawked down at the text message, free of the stuffy business clothing she had been wearing all day for the interview she_ thought _she bombed. Her phone sat on her bare right thigh, and what she could only assume was Ben Solo’s text message stared back at her._

_Her fingers began moving before she could stop them, unable to comprehend where the sudden playfulness that his message held came from._

**_Rey [4:11pm]: There’s not enough space for it._ **

_She couldn’t believe she had even responded to him. She probably wasn’t supposed to do that, and she definitely wasn’t supposed to say something playful. But Rey was going through a mental breakdown at the moment, although the prospect of having a job interview after being horrible in the last one was making her slowly feel better._

_The more she thought about it, the more she realized that she had been the shitty one all along. Ben wasn’t by any means nice, but he also hadn’t said anything outlandish to her. Disregarding his tone of voice, his questions were all befitting of a job interview. She had been the one to blow it out of proportion. She showed her age so much in that interview, it was a complete mystery why she even got another._

_A buzzing on her thigh made Rey look down and read the new message._

**_Unknown [4:17pm]: Is there not a large dumpster near you?_ **

_Grinning, Rey replied._

**_Rey [4:17pm]: There’s not enough dumpsters in all of the indrustrial district._ **

_The reply came sooner than the one before it, almost as if he had read it immediately._

**_Ben Solo [4:18pm]: You live in the industrial district? Never mind, don’t go near a dumpster._ **

_Rey laughed out loud at that. As much as she wanted to be offended, she couldn’t blame him. She’d be more likely to end up inside of the dumpster than make it back home completely unharmed._

**_Rey [4:20pm]: Then I guess I’ll be forced to bring my insolence with me. See you Wednesday, Mr. Solo._ **

_Now that she thought more about it, Ben Solo had been decently attractive, hadn’t he? Rey thought back to what he had been wearing, but couldn’t remember anything other than that it had been some sort of suit with his black hair pushed from his face. He was a shadowed figure, lingering in the back of her memory._

_Another thought struck Rey as she watched her unkempt reflection through her blackened phone screen._

_Did she just flirt with her possible new boss through text message?_

_“Fuck.”_

* * *

 

_“There she is,” Finn spoke as he carefully watched Rey walk into the room. His eyes strayed over her, but he managed to keep the look completely appropriate, as if he was sizing up a nice car in the parking lot._

_“Am I late? I thought it was at 11:30?” Rey’s voice grew frantic, her mind beginning to wander at what Ben would say if she was late to the interview he clearly gave her out of some sort of fluke bout of insanity. She couldn’t let him come to his senses._

_“No, you’re early! Don’t worry so much, Rey,” Finn told her, grabbing her shoulders. “And don’t be nervous in there. You got this!” His smile was blinding, but also more comforting than he knew. Rey found some sort of solace and what she knew could be a true friendship in the man before her. She had never had a close friend, but after the lunch she had with Finn and the text messages they’d exchanged since, she knew he was a keeper._

_Well, she hoped he felt the same way._

_She could only hope._

_Someone clearing their throat had Rey turning around, unintentionally throwing Finn’s hands from her shoulders. In the doorway stood Ben wearing a nice gray suit that Rey was sure she’d remember this time. His nose was long and pointed, but Rey thought it was something distinguished about his features._

_Alright, so he was cute. She’d give him that._

_In a ‘I’m going to be an asshole until you confuse hate for love’ sort of way._

_“Miss Kenobi, if you’d please,” Ben said, gesturing his open hand passed him and into the hall behind his broad body, leaving little space for her to brush by._

_Swallowing, Rey nodded, giving Finn a quick smile before she took her place behind him._

_“So,” the man began, and Rey noticed for the first time how deep his voice was. “You have already begun making friends within the company.” There was something in his tone, but it wasn’t easy to differentiate from all of the muddled emotions he constantly kept under his cold exterior. While she tried to push a bright, sunny disposition, he was content with leaving his completely barren. It was disheartening._

_Rey watched as he turned into room, and Rey observed his name printed on the door in nice black, bold lettering just before he closed it behind her._

_“Yes, Finn and I had lunch Monday.” She was smiling with genuine happiness, unaware of Ben’s honed in gaze. “He seems very nice.”_

_“Inter-employee relationships are forbidden within this company.”_

_Rey sat up straight, confusion clear across her features. “Why are you- Oh.” Rey chuckled, shifting in her seat. “Finn seems nice, but I intend to remain friends with him.” The next words left her lips without intention, but they did so anyway. “I don’t have many friends.”_

_“Me neither.”_

_Their eyes met, and Rey knew instantly that he hadn’t meant for that to come out either, probably even less so than she had._

_“I-“ he began, but Rey quickly spoke, her manner almost excited._

_Ben couldn’t help thinking of her as a puppy in that small moment._

_“We can be friends?” She asked, and Ben felt his stomach twist at the hope in her eyes. It wasn’t that he hated the girl. On the contrary, he had been quite intrigued by her during their first interview, even though she definitely wasn’t qualified to work in the company. Still, he couldn’t let her think she would somehow get special treatment, or that he wouldn’t hesitate to discipline her if she screwed up under his name._

_“No,” he responded. “If anything, I’m your employer and you’re the employee. That’s all.”_

_Rey felt her chest clench in pain, but nodded none the less. “Of course.”_

_“Let’s begin.”_

* * *

_“You are fine with beginning on Monday, then?” Ben asked as they both began to stand from their seats, concluding the interview._

_“Yes, of course. Thank you so much for this opportunity,” Rey held her hand out for him to shake._

_“Don’t be, my mother was the one who told me to bring you back in,” Ben revealed, taking her hand firmly._

_Rey knew from Finn that his mother was Leia Organa, the owner of the company, but she had never met the woman and had no idea why she would want Rey to be her employee. “Oh, she did? Why?”_

_Still holding her hand, Rey was surprised to see blush lightly tint his cheeks. “That’s not your concern.”_

_“Fine.” Rey swung her hand back, her knuckles hitting a cup of pens that sat near a corner. “Oh, god. I’m so sorry.” Rey quickly knelt down, picking at the pens like a chicken pecks at food. “I didn’t mean to respond like that. You just really manage to push my buttons.”_

_“Why is that?”_

_The deep voice asked from above her, and Rey slowly looked up to see Ben standing in front of her, his hands dug deeply into his pockets._

_Weakly, Rey responded, “That’s not your concern.”_

_“Isn’t it?” Ben asked, lowering himself just as Rey managed to get all of the pens back into the cup and stood back up._

_“Ow!” She screamed, grabbing onto her scalp where a sharp pain stabbed._

_“What? What’s wrong?” Ben took a step back, concerned and confused as the girl staggered around, half bent over before him, but Rey stumbled with him, screaming out once more._

_“Don’t move! My hair is caught in your button!” Rey tried pulling her hair from the small piece of plastic, but only served to make it more knotted. “Just my luck.”_

_Ben, unsure of what to do with his hands, laid them palm down on the desk and leaned against it while Rey attempted to untangled herself. “Can we just cut it?”_

_“No!” Rey stopped moving and sighed heavily. “If I cut it, I have to get the rest of my hair cut the same length.”_

_“Your point?” He drawled, clearly unconcerned with the fact that she would have to cut her hair into a bob. ‘It’s not as if she would look bad,’ he thought, but didn’t even dream of speaking the words into existence. He had made it very clear that he and her were to have no relationship of any kind, friendship or otherwise. Ben Solo was many things, but a hypocrite was not one of them._

_“Well why don’t we just cut your button off?” She asked, annoyed and heated from having to stay bent over so close to wear his pants buttoned up._

_Ben laughed at that, a patronizing sound that made Rey want to sucker punch him in his stomach, even contemplated it for a moment before deciding she needed to at least get a paycheck first. “Yeah, right. This is Armani virgin wool.”_

_“So? I’m sure he won’t mind,” Rey said offhandedly, lifting her hands once more to try and remove her hair, nearly desperate to leave this man’s side._

_Ben’s deep laugh rang more true, less sarcastic. “Armani is a brand. This suit was over six thousand dollars.”_

_Instead of the awe he expected from her, or even disgust at him having spent so much money on something so frivolous, Rey surprised him. “Sounds like a personal issue, Mr. Solo. I’m just trying to keep all of my hair intact.” Her utter disinterest in the money he spent made him slightly awkward, as if she neither disparaged or revered money. He wasn’t sure how to speak to someone who so little cared for the thing he held most dear._

_“Sir- Oh!” A voice said from behind Rey, and she turned enough to see it was a young woman. Oh God, she could only imagine how terrible this would look to someone else. Rey’s face burned red hot, which she quickly buried in Ben’s suit. The man’s large hand gently rested on her exposed neck, his thumb rubbing comfortingly there. “I’ll come back later.”_

_“Actually, Lynn. Please bring me a pair of scissors. It seems Miss Kenobi got her hair stuck in one of my buttons after she accidentally dropped something on the floor.”_

_It sounded like an excuse to all three ears, even if two of them knew it was the truth. But she figured if her and Lynn could become friends after this, Rey could simply explain to the other woman what happened and she would understand._

_When she felt his hands move from her neck and begin to try and remove her hair on his own, Rey glared at the hard abdomen before her. “Don’t you dare, Ben Solo.”_

_“Just sit still, Little Bird,” he cooed from above her, and Rey felt her knees shake at the endearment. “This’ll be over soon.”_

_“Ben, I swear to God if you cut my bloody hair!” Her voice screeched loudly and unapologetically shrilly. That stupid son of a bitch! If he cut her hair, she was going to… Going to… File a complaint to HR or something! She wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but she sure as shit would do something to the man. She wasn’t above a knee to the family jewels. One thing that growing up where she did left her with was absolutely zero ethics about fighting dirty._

_Lynn returned quickly with the scissors and handed them off with a gentle, “here sir”, and then left just as quickly because the door closed behind Rey right after._

_In Rey’s peripheral, she saw the dreaded scissors opening beside her like the jaws of a python striking to attack. “Ben please,” Rey begged, closing her eyes and laying her forehead against his stomach once more, feeling the muscles ripple beneath the cloth. No response from the man before her only made her more terrified, and when she heard the snipping of scissors and the lack of tugging on her scalp, Rey almost cried from relief and sadness._

_She wondered if Ben would let her borrow those scissors to cut her hair tonight. She couldn’t afford to get it done professionally._

_“I’ll have my tailor reattach this over the weekend,” the deep voice said, returning from its slumber to awaken Rey’s senses. She spun around so quickly, her brain kept spinning and through slightly hazed vision, she saw a shiny gray circle grasped between his large thumb and index finger._

_“You didn’t cut my hair?”_

_Ben looked up at her from where he had been staring disinterestedly at the button. “You asked me not to.”_

_Her heart was beating so fast. Why was it doing that? Sure, no one had ever said something like that to her, no one had ever considered what she said and actually listened. But, Ben Solo was an asshole, wasn’t he? There had to have been an explanation for his sudden consideration of her._

_“Oh,” was what she managed._

_With an upward tilt at the left side of his mouth, Ben sat the button down on his desk and leaned against it once more. “See you Monday, Miss Kenobi.”_

* * *

 

**_Ben Solo [8:42pm]: Perhaps on Monday, you should wear this to work. [link]_ **

_Rey’s finger hovered above the message, afraid to click the link. What the hell could he have sent her? Was it something inappropriate? Was it lingerie? Oh god, what if it was? Rey didn’t have enough money to buy something like that!_

_Wait, that’s not the problem here. The problem would be him asking her to in the first place! Who the hell did he think he was?_

_Filled to the brim with white hot fire, Rey clicked the link and watched as her screen switched over to a page on amazon. She held her breath as the page loaded on the motels shitty wifi, staring intently until the design of the webpage built itself up and the image loaded._

_Rey laughed so loudly, the man staying in the room beside her began banging on the walls._

_The image was that of a hair net befitting a lunch lady in a middle school cafeteria._

_Still giggling when she thought about it, Rey found a suit on the website that zipped up the front instead of buttoning._

**_Rey [8:47pm]: Only if you wear this. [link]_ **

_For a man who said they couldn’t be friends, he sure was talking to her a lot. Not that Rey was complaining. She had been the one to suggest it in the first place, but he had responded so rudely that she was sure he would never text her again. Yet, here they were._

**_Ben Solo [8:50pm]: If you see me wearing that, it’s because I’ve been kidnapped and need Helpful Employees Living Prosperously._ **

**_Rey [8:50pm]: Well, luckily for you, my alter-ego is a vigilante lunch lady. I could save you for a small price, mister._ **

**_Ben Solo [8:53pm]: And what would that small price be, Lady Meatloaf?_ **

_Rey snorted up the water she was drinking, droplets spraying out onto her and the bed._

**_Rey [8:55pm]: 1,000,000,000 dollars._ **

**_Rey [8:55pm]: And full ownership of that suit._ **

**_Ben Solo [8:57pm]: The money isn’t a problem, but me and that suit have been through a lot together. I don’t think I could part with it._ **

_Rey laid back against her bed, turning on her side to type on her phone without worry of it falling and hitting her in the face._

**_Rey [8:59pm]: Let me wear it every other weekend and you’ve got yourself a deal. Unless there’s something else you can think of?_ **

_Fuck! Why was she doing this? Ben clearly said he didn’t want to be her friend, why the hell was she even pushing the boundaries?_

**_Ben Solo [9:04pm]: This is your deal, Miss Kenobi. I’m just the one who needs to be rescued._ **

**_Ben Solo [9:04pm]: What else do you want from me?_ **

_Was it just her, or was he flirting with her? She’d never been good at knowing, and she was still pretty young, but Rey was almost positive he was flirting with her._

**_Rey [9:08pm]: Too much, probably._ **

_Immediately, Rey had thrown the phone from her hand and watched as it bounced off the end of her bed and hit the disgusting carpeted floor._

_“What did I **just do**?!” Rey screamed, covering her face with her hands. “You just got that fucking job, Rey! Now you’re going to ruin it for some teenage hormones? Come on!” _

_She was going to be fired. Ben had every right to fire her, and he was definitely going to. Hell, she should have never been hired in the first place! She didn’t belong in an office building. She didn’t belong anywhere besides the junk yard! He had tried to tell her that, he had tried to keep her in her place but she was the one who wouldn’t listen._

_Why did she ruin everything? Why did she always ruin everything?_

_Memories flooded her mind, leaving her breathless as she tried to get rid of them to the depths of her brain where she could ignore their existence again._

_Rey didn’t even realize there were tears coming out of her eyes until she heard buzzing from the floor and tried to find it through blurry vision. The buzzing was constant, so either she was getting a whole lot of messages or someone was calling her._

_Rey picked the phone up, gasping when she saw it was none other than Ben Solo’s name on the screen._

_“H-Hello?”_

_“Miss Kenobi-Wait,” a pause. “Are you crying?”_

_Rey quickly muted the phone and got her breathing right, then continued. “No, of course not. Anyway, why are you calling me?”_

_“You didn’t respond.”_

_Rey put the call on speaker and looked through the texts he had sent._

**_Ben Solo [9:09pm]: You never know unless you ask._ **

**_Ben Solo [9:10pm]: It could be mutual._ **

**_Ben Solo [9:23pm]: Perhaps that was too forward, I was actually hoping you would continue so that I could have a good idea if you would agree if I asked you out to dinner, but I’m pretty sure I’ve ran you off._ **

**_Ben Solo [9:38pm]: I’ve just recalled you live in the industrial district, and as an employer I’m concerned about your safety, so… Please respond, at least to this message. Feel free to ignore the ones before it._ **

_“Oh, Ben,” Rey whispered. “I’m so sorry. I- I was caught up in my own thoughts, I didn’t even realize that much time had passed.”_

_“Is that why you were crying?”_

_“I wasn’t crying,” Rey tried, but somehow knew she had failed._

_Ben’s sigh sounded through the phone. “Have you eaten dinner?”_

_“It’s almost 10pm, Ben.”_

_“And yet, that wasn’t what I asked.” Rey laughed. “Have you?”_

_She hadn’t. But how was she supposed to tell him she hadn’t eaten a real dinner in over two months? She couldn’t. A rich man like Ben would only look down on her for it._

_“No, I forgot.”_

_“Text me your address. What’s your favorite thing to eat?”_

_Rey wasn’t sure if she should let this happen. In fact, she knew if she did, that she’d get attached to him, and had already been told that it wasn’t an option. Sure, he asked her to dinner, but there was literally no telling what he wanted from her._

_Still, Rey felt a desperation tearing at her heart._

_“Pancakes,” Rey said, smiling into the phone. “Eggs and bacon too.”_

_“Send me your address. I’ll see you soon.”_

_“Drive safe, Ben.”_

* * *

 

_Come Monday morning, Rey had seen Ben twice since their breakfast for dinner on Wednesday night. Both times he had just taken her for food, and never once did he seem to try and push for anything more. It was comforting, but also frustrating._

_At this point, Rey was a willing and ready participant. Sure, she had found out that he was about ten years older than her, but they had enough chemistry to cause an explosion and Rey was a young woman, after all. She had needs, and those needs included Ben Solo and a large bed. Maybe some food, before or after._

_Maybe during._

_“Rey? Where are you at right now?” Finn asked from beside her desk. Rey shook herself from where she was staring at the granola bar she was going to eat for lunch to look up at her friend. He had become her friend in a matter of a week, going to lunch with her often and even inviting her over to watch a movie once._

_“Hm? I’m here, I’m here. Sorry, I zoned out.”_

_Finn patted her on the shoulder, then gestured to his right where a man stood. “This is my buddy Poe. Poe, this is Rey.”_

_Rey looked passed Finn at the man, taking in all of him. He was cute, a little short, but definitely cute. Curly brown hair and sparkling eyes. And he had a smile that made her brain short circuit, and a look on his face that let her know he knew exactly what effect it had on her._

_Rey held out her hand. “Nice to meet you.”_

_Poe grasped it, squeezing gently. “Likewise.”_

_“Come have lunch with us, Rey. Poe’s buying,” Finn said, clapping the other man on the shoulder._

_“Oh, no. I’m fine,” she responded. Truly, she had been allowing too many of her meals to be bought by other people. It was nice, but she couldn’t start depending on others like that. It would just make it all the more difficult when they left._

_Poe, not reading the room, leaned down a bit. “Are you sure? I heard there’s going to be spaghetti and garlic bread.” Rey gripped the arms of her chair tightly. She wanted to say no, but she also didn’t want to lose a possible friend. Could she decline again without seeming rude? She didn’t want him to dislike her, or make Finn think she was a bad person._

_“Sorry,” a deep voice interrupted the air. “Miss Kenobi has prior engagements.”_

_All three people looked up to see a stern faced Ben Solo trudging towards them in a pristine suit._

_“Oh,” Poe muttered. “Boss’ coming. Sorry, Rey. Maybe tomorrow?”_

_Rey nodded, then smiled at Finn as he looked at her with an apology flooding his eyes before leaving her alone with Ben._

_“Thank you,” Rey muttered, looking down at the hands in her lap._

_“You can tell people ‘no’, Rey. If someone is asking you to do something you’re not comfortable with, you’re allowed to tell them ‘no’.”_

_Her eyes lifted towards his, surprised to see the stern expression still there. Perhaps he was separating them hanging out outside of work from their professional lives? “I know that.”_

_“You don’t,” Ben corrected, then picked up her granola bar from the desk in front of her, his arm brushing her shoulder as he did so. She took a deep breath, the sound filling her ears and keeping her from hearing him do the same. “Come have lunch with me.”_

_Rey bit her lip, looking around the room to see if anyone was watching them._

_They were._

_Still, Rey nodded and began to stand up. “Okay.”_

_Ben still stood before her, less than two feet from her. “Remember, you can say ‘no’.” His face told her that he didn’t mean just then, that he meant about them in general. About them hanging out, texting, calling, and all of the other things they had been doing recently._

_“I don’t want to,” she whispered, her heart fluttering within her still wounded chest, causing a little pain but a lot of pleasure._

_“Let’s go, then.”_

* * *

_She had barely gotten fully seated in his glossy black SUV before she reached over and kissed him. His jaw hung open, and his eyebrows raised comically high, making Rey laugh amongst the fear she had. When she realized what she had done, Rey sucked in a deep breath._

_“I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. Um, please forget that I just did that.” She turned, her hand moving to the door handle. “I’m going to go.”_

_A strong hand grasped her upper arm, pulling her closer. Rey turned to ask him what he was doing, but was quickly stopped by his warm mouth covering her own. She responded instantly, as if it was instinctual, and sighed when his hands found purchase in her hair._

_Ben’s wet tongue swept across her bottom lip before diving between, touching and caressing her own. She had never kissed like that before, and it was a bit of a strange feeling, but tasting him so easily, as if he was her and she was him, was comforting in and of itself._

_Leaving one hand to tangle within her hair, the other trailed down until it was against her neck. His thumb pressed gently along the arteries, sliding down to lightly touch her collarbone._

_The small gesture forced a moan from Rey’s throat, making her eyes open wide as she pulled away from Ben. “I didn’t… I’ve never done that before.”_

_Ben’s wet lips parted slightly, only for them to take on a feral smile that made the seat wet beneath her. Slowly, he leaned in and gave a tender kiss to her clavicle._

_“Ben,” Rey whined, shifting in the passenger seat._

_Ignoring her, his hands slid up and down her shoulders, reveling in the warmth she gave off. She was a tiny thing, especially in comparison to him. The thought of her dainty body tensing up and soft cries coming from her lips made him forget about the hour he had for lunch, his mind entirely focused on Rey._

_Rey._

**_Rey._ **

_With new vigor, Ben bent forward and claimed her neck for his own, his tongue laving in between the suction he created between his lips. His left hand trailed further down, absolutely provoked by her soft cries she released for him, and carefully brushed the front of her shirt where he could see she had been poking through once they got in his car._

_He’d need to talk to her about wearing a bra, unless he was allowed to do this every day for their lunch break._

_“Oh, Ben,” She moaned, cooing and fussing above him._

_Her saying his name egged him on, his hand palming her breast through her shirt as he bit her neck. “Does this feel good, Rey?” Rey nodded above him, and Ben smiled. “Use your words, little bird.”_

_“Yes, yes, yes,” she groaned, throwing her head back against his seat._

_Ben’s hands trailed lower, one tearing her shirt from where it was tucked into her skirt and the other continuing down her thighs until his fingertips could taste bare skin. “You’re so soft, Rey.” His fingers made similar swirling motions, one on her inner thigh and the other around her strained nipple. “I wish I could run my tongue all over you.”_

_“Please,” she brokenly whispered, shifting her hips towards his hand. Rey wasn’t sure what she wanted from him, wasn’t used to the feeling, but she knew she needed some sort of release. He was making her go insane, her whole body was throbbing._

_“Do you want me to touch you, Rey?” Ben questioned, lightly pinching her nipple._

_“God, yes.”_

_Ben leaned forward, his mouth just beside her ear to let his warm breath make her shiver. “Tell me.”_

_Rey turned, looking at Ben as his breath fanned her face. She had never said anything like that before, it was embarrassing. But still, the thought of him **not** continuing was even worse. “Please. Please touch me, Mr. Solo.”_

_She knew she had at least slightly turned the cards around when his lips parted at the name. But she no longer cared if he was in charge or she was when his fingers pressed against the front of her underwear, sliding between her folds and finding her more than ready._

_“ **Fuck** , Rey. You’re so wet. I- Oh fucking hell,” he groaned as his hand pulled her underwear to the side, his other hand leaving her breast to help. “Can you move a little bit for me, Rey? Can you do that?” Rey nodded, her face flushed and nipples hard against her shirt. Ben was sure he was in fucking heaven._

_“Lean against that door so I can see you, little bird.”_

_Rey did so immediately, turning in the large seat, one knee bent against the back of it and the other hanging off the front as her legs spread before him. Her underwear had moved back into place, but Ben could see the damp spot she had made and the outline of her perfectly, making his mouth water._

_“Next time, I’m going to taste you,”  he said, sliding his hands up her legs. “I’m going to make you cum so hard, I drown in you. Is that okay with you?”_

_“Oh, Ben. Yes, please just- Oh!” Her hand slapped to her mouth, covering her whimpers and cries when he finally got her underwear to the side once more and slid his finger between her folds. She was soaking wet, his index finger was slipping against her flesh with ease, and Rey was thrusting her hips forward. Every time he brushed against her nub, she screamed into her hand, closing her eyes and leaning against the window._

_“Don’t cover your mouth, Rey. I want to hear my name when you scream it,” Ben commanded, pleased when she moved the offending part from before her pretty pink mouth. As a reward for her listening to him, he lowered his finger slightly and rubbed against her entrance. “Have you ever had a finger inside of you before?”_

_“No,” she quickly answered._

_“Is this okay?” He needed to know she was fine with what was happening. Rey felt relieved that he asked, making her all the more needy for his touch._

_“Yes, Ben, yes. Please finger me.” She hoped that wasn’t too dirty, but she needed him to hurry up. Her body was beginning to melt beneath him and she wasn’t sure how much time she had left._

_A smirk took over Ben’s face, and then he was pressing inside of her. It didn’t hurt, but it wasn’t great either. Rey whimpered shifting her hips to try and get some sort of pleasure from the experience, but none came._

_“Wait a minute, little bird.” Ben removed his finger, only to slowly slide it back in between her clenched walls. Rey sighed at that, and Ben took it as an invitation to keep going. As he sped up his movements, Rey finally cried out again. “You look so beautiful right now, Rey. Face flushed and gripping my finger so tightly.”_

_At his voice, Rey opened her mouth to moan, only for it to cut off half way when the thumb of his other hand began rubbing against her clit. “Oh, oh, Ben. Oh my god, that feels-feels amazing!”_

_“Rey, are you going to cum for me?”_

_Rey shook her head, moving her hips on her own. It felt good, really really good, but she wasn’t close to her release yet._

_“I guess we’ll have to change that,” Ben murmured, his mouth sucking against her neck once more while his middle finger prodded her entrance before delving in as well. At the stretch, Rey’s back arched and a scream left her lips, this time from complete pleasure. Ben rocketed his motions, thrusting in and out of her with enough speed to have Rey’s entire body shaking. “Cum for me, Rey.”_

_Unsure of the feeling building up inside of her, Rey shook her head as her mouth let out strings of moans, not quite letting herself fall over the edge._

_Ben groaned, adding a third finger, making Rey feel a mix of pain and pleasure. “Ben!”_

_“Rey, Rey, Rey,” he chanted in her ear. The man kissed her mouth after that, rubbing himself against his console. His wrist was aching, his back burning from the odd angle, but he felt her closing up around him and new he had to go just a little bit faster._

_A sudden shrieking left her mouth, and her entire body went tense as she felt herself release all over his hand and his seat. She wasn’t able to look down, wasn’t able to move, but she heard the awe in his voice when he said, “you squirted?”_

_“Is that… normal?”_

_Ben pulled her forward into his arms, ignoring the fact that she had covered his leather seats in her cum. “Not many people do it, but it lets me know you were feeling really good.”_

_Rey rested her head against his shoulder, “I was.”_

_Ben kissed her temple. “I’m glad.”_

* * *

 

_Their first real date was at a taco bell, where despite Ben’s protest, they stayed and ate chalupas in between talking for three hours. He had wanted to take her to some fancy restaurant, but from equal parts fear of not having nice enough clothes and not wanting to be uncomfortable, she talked him into going to taco bell._

_Later that night, he ate her out until she heard ringing in her ears so profoundly she nearly had a panic attack before he comforted her while biting back a smile._

_“Thank you, no one’s ever helped me through that sort of thing before,” she told him._

_Ben had only smiled, pulling her shorts back up her legs and buttoning them for her before flopping down on his couch with her in his lap. “Well you don’t need to worry about that anymore.”_

_She didn’t believe him, but she smiled and nodded anyway._

* * *

_After two months of dating and managing to keep it a secret from everyone because of the company rules, all of their colleagues found out that they were seeing each other. It was there company Christmas party, and unless you had gotten prior permission, the event was mandatory. Not that Rey wanted to miss. Christmas was her favorite holiday, despite the lack of good memories from it, and she was excited to spend it with both her friends and Ben, even if she couldn’t do it at the same time._

_She had been hanging out with Finn and Poe, preparing to leave them in a few minutes to go see Ben under the guise of going outside for some air, when it happened._

_“Mistletoe!” Someone shouted, and Rey looked around confused before she saw everyone looking at her._

_“What’s going on?” Rey asked, turning to see Poe looking at her with reddened cheeks and a cheeky smile on his lips. She saw his finger pointing up, and noticed a mistletoe hanging from the ceiling above them. “Oh.”_

_Now, Rey had secretly already had two glasses of wine. She wasn’t supposed to, but Finn kept sneaking them for her, and when someone got suspicious, she abandoned her cup and Finn would get a new one a few minutes later. So while she was by no means drunk, she was slightly buzzed and didn’t quite see the harm in giving a small, chaste kiss to her good friend._

_As oblivious as she was, she was completely unaware of the excitement in Poe’s eyes and the happiness but gentle sadness in Finn’s. In the latter’s case, he quickly realized that him and her were not going to happen, and was slowly growing acquainted with the idea, and had even been pushing Poe to pursue her. Still, it was a little heart breaking to watch one of your best friends go in for a kiss with the other one you had a thing for._

_Rey laughed at the chanting, closing her eyes and awkwardly leaning in towards Poe, holding her hands clasped in front of her._

_Something barely brushed her lips before she was seized completely, pulled into a pair of lips she’d know anywhere. Rey opened her eyes, finding hard dark ones on her own and a passionate groan rumbled against her lips as Ben slid his hands around her waist, pulling her body flush against his own. His hot tongue slid into her mouth, and Rey allowed a small high pitched moan to escape her._

_When they finally managed to pull away from each other, the entire company was watching the two of them, but Ben was only staring at her._

_“What are you_ doing _?!” Rey whisper/shouted._

_Scoffing, he pulled away from her, but still kept his hands on her sides. “Me? You were about to kiss him!”_

_Rey looked over at Finn and Poe, who were completely confused and seriously offended by what was beginning to come to light. “There was a mistletoe, Ben! He’s my friend! It was going to be quick!” Rey shoved his chest away from her, but Ben grabbed her hands and kept them held against his chest. “What?” She gritted out, angry at him for making the decision to out them without even discussing it with her._

_“I couldn’t stand there and watch you kiss another man, Rey,” he said easily with a shake of his head, staring down at her with a deeply serious expression. “I couldn’t.”_

_The anger left her like rain trickling down from a roof, and she nodded towards him, letting him know she understood. “I’m sorry,” she spoke truthfully, and Ben’s mouth curved into a smile._

_“Me too.”_

_“Rey Kenobi.”_

_Rey spun around, finding none other than Leia Organa standing before her amongst the other employee who had moved on from the situation. “Yes, ma’am?”_

_“It seems we have a lot to talk about,” Leia spoke, waiting for the young girls eyes to widen before she smiled. “I had a feeling he was seeing you and not telling me about it. How about you and my son come over on Christmas day and we can discuss all of this.”_

_Rey nodded, “yes ma’am. I would love to,” she looked up at Ben, waiting for him to agree._

_He did so with a groan, but pulled Rey closer to him anyway. “We’ll be there.”_

* * *

_“I love this kid!” Han crowed, laughing from the end of the table. “You’re telling me you were the one who jacked up Jabba’s transmission?”_

_Rey smiled, her hand in Ben’s under the table. “He tried to stiff our mechanic shop and leave without paying the bill fully, so I did a little work under his hood the next time he was in town.”_

_Han laughed harder, covering his mouth with his hand as he began coughing. Once he finished, he wheezed, turning to Leia. “Can you get me some water, sweetheart?” Leia nodded, standing from the table. “Well, I personally think that son of a bitch deserved everything bad that ever happened to him. He’s bullshitted me around a time or two.”_

_“I couldn’t agree more, Mr. Solo.”_

_“Please,” Han stopped her. “Mr. Solo was my mother,” Rey laughed, and Ben grumbled beside her. “Call me Han.”_

_“Han,” Rey corrected, smiling at the older man._

_She had never felt so welcome in a home before. Leia was a very sweet woman but it was apparent she could kick an ass or two if she wanted, and Han was fierce on the outside, but seemed to treat Leia like she walked a path of gold. It was heartwarming to watch, and even more so to interact with._

_Sitting the glass of water before Han, Leia sat back in her chair. “I just want to say how happy I am you two came to visit us.” She eyed her son, sipping on her glass of white wine. “Ben never comes to see us. Maybe you can be the one to talk him into it.”_

_Ben glared at the woman, knowing exactly what she was doing; using Rey as her own weapon to force him to come to more family events._

_“Ben,” Rey said, turning to him with a look of disbelief. “You don’t visit your family?”_

_“You wouldn’t understand, Rey. You don’t have a-” They both knew he had fucked up exponentially before he could finish the sentence, and Leia watched as her son immediately began apologizing to his girlfriend, surprised at the sight. “I didn’t mean to say that, Rey please.”_

_“It’s fine, you were right,” Rey said, not exactly ignoring him, but clearly hiding the true way she felt about the matter. “Thank you so much for dinner, Leia. And Han,” Rey stood up, taking the man’s hand in her own and smiling as she shook it. “Thank you for the great conversation.”_

_“Why do I feel like this is her telling us goodbye for good?” Han asked, to which Leia elbowed him in the side. “What?”_

_Rey smiled, walking out of the room. Ben quickly stumbled after her, yanking his coat off of the back of his chair, hitting his dad in the shoulder and kissing his mother on her temple before he followed the sound of doors shutting._

_“Rey!” Ben called, watching as she walked out to the street. “Rey, please stop!”_

_Rey spun around so quickly, Ben checked to make sure she didn’t leave skid marks. “How dare you, Benjamin Chewbacca Solo!” Ben’s eyes rolled at the use of his god forsaken middle name, suddenly mad he had ever told her. “You talk about something like that in front of your family? Telling me I don’t understand how hard it was for you to have loving parents when I had none? Are you fucking kidding me?”_

_Ben walked towards her, but she shrugged off his hands and turned away from him. “Please don’t brush me off, Rey. I know what I said was shitty. I wasn’t thinking.”_

_“No, you weren’t,” she told him, glancing at him from over her shoulder._

_Ben walked towards her until she backed up against his car parked along the side of the road. When she was unable to go any further, Ben fell to his knees before her, disregarding the cold of the pavement and the pain in his knees. “Please forgive me,” he asked, looking up at her._

_A laugh leaked through her angry demeanor, her hands falling on either side of his face. “Get up, you complete idiot.”_

_He leaned forward, kissing her stomach through her dress. “Not until you tell me you forgive me. If I ever say something like that again, Rey, please just punch me in the throat or kick me in the balls.” He groaned, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her closer to him. “Anything else besides you walking out on me like that.”_

_“Alright, alright, I forgive you!” Rey laughed, leaning down and kissing him as he stood. “You’re crazy.”_

_“Crazy for you,” he supplied, and the both of them groaned in disgust at the terrible joke. “Alright, that was too out of character, I’ll admit.”_

_“You definitely cannot pull off that kind of line,” Rey agreed, kissing him once more as he pushed her against the hood. She shivered from the cold, but shivered once more from something else when he stepped between her legs, pushing his hips against her own._

_Ben pulled back slightly, kissing her chastely before stepping several feet back. “We need to go before I end up fucking you in front of my parents.”_

_“What?!” Rey screeched._

_He laughed, grabbing her hand and opening the passenger door for her. “They were staring through the living room window.” His hand slid down, cupping around her mound through her maroon dress and rubbing a finger against where he knew made her keen. “I hope you’re not fond of this dress because when we get home, I’m tearing it off of you.”_

* * *

 

_That night, he made love to her on his bed, cumming deeply within her after making her orgasm three times. She moaned out at the feeling, irritated that she had waited this long to experience it and thankful that Ben had given her time. Rey kissed him profoundly and shifted her hips before he pulled back and smiled. “Merry Christmas, little bird.”_

_“Merry Christmas,” she responded, her face beaming with a smile of unsullied delight._

* * *

_They had been dating for a little over seven months when she told him she was driving back to the Industrial District to get the rest of her stuff she had been storing at the back of the junkyard. Ever since she got her first paycheck, Rey had been staying in a decent hotel or at Ben’s house. She finally had saved enough to get an apartment- although part of her had hoped that her talking about the apartment would encourage Ben to possibly assume she wanted him to stay with her, but she knew that it was early in the relationship and that it could be much too soon for that._

_“I’ll go with you,” Ben told her over the phone. He had gone into work that Saturday morning to grab some paperwork, and was now on his way back. “I’d rather drive you in my car than yours anyway.”_

_“Hey, you leave BB-8 out of this,” Rey said, feigning offense. “And I’m not sure you want to go, it’s not exactly a nice place.”_

_“Exactly why I want to go with you,” his voice said through the phone. Rey stopped her toenail painting to stare off in the distance. She had never had someone care so much about her like Ben did. Could he handle seeing her past? Could he still care about her if he knew where she came from and how she had lived?_

_“Are you sure?”_

_“Of course. I’ll be there in about seventeen minutes. Are you going to be ready?”_

_Rey thought about her nails, but decided she could just wear flip flops and lay her feet on the dash. The first time she had done so, he had swatted her feet from the dash and gave her a glare, and then the second time she did it, he had reached over and gripped her thigh tightly, a warning. Two days later, she had done it again just to see what his response would be and he ended up making her cum around his fingers while going 75 down the freeway._

_Needless to say, she wasn’t scared of his reaction anymore._

_“Yep!”_

* * *

 

_As soon as Rey got in Ben’s car, she propped her feet up on the dash and buckled up, smiling over at him. He gave her a look, but said nothing as he laid his hand on her thigh. “Are you going to be my little navigator?”_

_Rey turned his head by his chin and kissed his lips, smiling while holding up his phone. “Sure thing, baby.”_

* * *

_Ben was sure he had never seen anything as breath taking as Rey sitting in the seat he had made her cum in so many times, sweat pants on and her hair pulled back into her iconic three buns._

_When she realized he was staring at her, she looked up with confusion._

_“Nothing, I was just thinking about how beautiful you are.”_

_Rey laughed shyly, still not completely used to his compliments. “Whatever, stupid.”_

_He saw her cover her smile as she turned away to look out the window, his own lips unapologetically curled into a grin._

* * *

_An hour and twenty-two minutes later, they were pulling up to Plutt’s Junk Yard. Ben glanced around as he came to a complete stop in the driveway, looking over to Rey and seeing where her body was trembling lightly in her seat. “Rey, what’s wrong?”_

_She ignored him, getting out of the car and shutting the door gently. Before she could make it more than just a few steps, Ben had her hand in his and was pulling her to a stop. “Rey, you have to tell me what you’re thinking.”_

_Her stomach was in her throat, making it very difficult to manage what was coming out of her mouth, that’s the only reason she can think of that she would tell him. “Unkar, he was… Not very nice.” Rey thought back on it, and shook her head. “No, fuck that. He was a horrible, horrible man to me. I put up with it only because I had no other choice.”_

_Understanding flittered across Ben’s face, and he quickly gripped her hand tightly before wrapping his other arm around her shoulder. “Do you want me to go in for you?”_

_“No,” Rey said, sending him a thankful smile. “I have to do this.”_

_Nodding, Ben kissed her forehead and let her lead them inside._

* * *

_The found out Unkar Plutt had died three months before hand and the junk yard was ran by a much nicer young man who had begun working under him after Rey left. Unkar had actually pulled her things out to throw away, but had passed before he ever did and the man hadn’t had time to do so himself, so her things were still sitting in two boxes at the back of one of the sheds._

_Ben carried the largest for her and they thanked the man as they left. Just after placing her things in the back of his SUV, Ben noticed tears streaming down her face. “Rey-“_

_“No,” she smiled up at him, offering him a blinding smile through the pain that was slowly being washed away with the tide. “They’re happy tears.”_

_Completely understanding that it wasn’t just from the man dying but knowing that she never needed to worry about him again, Ben smiled back at her and kissed her nose. “I love you.”_

_Rey gasped, pulling away from the man and looking up at him with skepticism._

_“You don’t have to respond now,” Ben told her, his smile never ebbing. “I’ll wait forever if I have to.”_

_“Will you?” Rey asked him, letting her vulnerability show and walking into his chest as she hid her face._

_“Will I what?”_

_Rey hugged him, breathing in his manly smell that coated all of his clothes. “Stay with me forever.” After a moment of silence, Rey pulled back and wiped her face, shutting the trunk and walking to her side of the car, Ben fresh on her heels. “That’s a lot to ask of a person, I’m sorry.”_

_“No, it’s not.”_

_“It is,” she laughed. “You really don’t need to give me an answer. In fact, I’d prefer it if you didn’t. No one stays together forever.”_

_Before she could open the door, Ben leaned forward and caught her in his arms, pulling her back to his chest so he could talk into her ear. “I’m not going to leave you, Rey.” He kissed her neck, squeezing her tightly when he felt her shoulders begin to shake. “I’m never going to leave you. Not like them.”_

_For a moment, she believed him._

_Only for a moment._

_“You realize she’s in love with you, right?” Rey shouted, enraged at her boyfriend’s ignorance. The woman was practically rubbing herself against him **yet again** , and he did little else than smile down at the girl and encourage her!_

_Ben shook his head, leaning down to where his girlfriend sat slumped into the couch in the lobby of the hotel they were having their second company Christmas party in. He had noticed his new secretary being a little more friendly than usual, but it was likely because she had more than a few drinks in her._

_“She doesn’t love me, she’s just drunk.”_

_Rey scoffed, “so that’s an excuse now? Would you go and hit on someone prettier than me when you’re drunk?”_

_He smiled, kneeling before her and resting his head on her thigh. She had been a bit hormonal for the past few days, but Ben was more than okay with her sudden aggressive possessiveness. He had to hide his own feelings, but when she was like this, he could show them more and not have her get angry at him for it._

_“No, I don’t have to worry about that because there’s no one prettier than you,” he cooed, and Rey bit back a smile as soon as he said it. “In fact, it’s more like I have to fight off all the men. You should actually be paying me, it’s a full time job.”_

_“Shut up,” Rey grumbled, but smiled at him anyway._

_Ben leaned forward and kissed her gently on the mouth, placing both of his hands at her stomach. “What’s this about, really?”_

_She avoided eye contact then, and that more than anything worried him. Rey had been very open with him in the past few months, lowering her barriers slowly until he had his own personal door that only he had the key to. If she was closing herself off again, he had reason for concern._

_“I’m afraid to tell you,” Rey whispered._

_Ben suddenly realized what she had been getting upset about and immediately his heart began to race. “You… You didn’t cheat on me, did you?” He asked as if her answer could make the world end. Not just his world, but the entire world._

_“No!” Rey shouted, leaning forward to hold onto his as he began to back away. “Oh my god, no, Ben!” She kissed him, backed away, then leaned in to kiss him again in case he never wanted to kiss her again. “I’m pregnant.”_

_Ben stopped breathing._

_It wasn’t very surprising. They used condoms a lot, but there were times that she asked him not to, and he listened without contest._

_“At least, I’m pretty certain I’m pregnant,” Rey moved her hands from him when he stood up. “I haven’t taken a test, but I’m three weeks late and my period has always been the one constant in my life.” She chanced a glance up at him, and began crying immediately at the look on his face. “I’m so sorry.”_

_Shaking himself, Ben fell back to his knees in front of her. “What are you apologizing for? I’m the one that’s sorry, I’m the one who did this!”_

_Rey continued crying, her face buried in her hands. Ben rubbed his palms along her thighs before they made their way up to her stomach. Was his child in there now? Growing slowly but surely within the woman he loved? But when he looked at her, he didn’t see the woman he loved. He saw a broken child needing to be consoled. A child. For God’s sake, she was fucking nineteen. What kind of bastard was he?_

_“I’ll pay for it, if you choose to get rid of it, Rey. I’ll take care of you.” Ben listened as her sobs grew stronger. “What’s wrong, baby girl? Tell me.”_

_“Idonwannagetridofit,” she quickly mumbled through her hands, causing Ben to pull her hands away and look at him. She knew what he wanted without him saying it, but she still waited a moment before repeating. “I don’t want to get rid of it, Ben,” Rey’s eyes watered further, tears spilling over her tan cheeks and onto her dress he bought her. “It’s half me and half you. I want to treasure that, always.”_

_She was in his arms before she knew what was happening, and Ben kissed her all over her face. “Then we’ll keep it, and we’ll raise it, and it will never want for anything.” He continued plastering her with love until she laughed, swiping her eyes as he kissed every trace of tears away. “I’ll take care of you, Rey. I’ll always take care of you.”_

* * *

 

_An hour and a half later, Rey walked out of her apartment bathroom with a pink stick in her hand._

_Ben didn’t wait a moment, jumping up immediately and standing before her like a kid waiting to be let out of time out. “Well?”_

_Rey held up the stick. “I’m pregnant,” she smiled._

_Ben scooped her up, letting her place the stick on the table before he walked towards the studio apartment bedroom area, tossing her on her fluffy bed and quickly ridding her of her pants. “Ben!” Rey squealed._

_“Do you think if I fuck you as much as possible in the beginning, we can have twins?” He asked, grinning at her from above her legs._

_Rey laughed loudly, rolling away from him only to be pulled up and her back pressed against his front._

_“Maybe even triplets. Imagine, three little Ben Solos,” he whispered in her ear, grinding his erection down against her ass._

_Rey whined, keening up against him. “I love you,” Rey said, holding herself up with one arm and wrapping the other behind her around his neck. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”_

_He had known it for a while at that point. She had said it accidentally on the phone to him twice, and often ended texts with ‘love you’, but this was the first time she had said it completely on purpose, and with love and adoration clear in her voice. Ben quickly nipped her neck. “I love you too, so fucking much.” He quickly pulled her dress up her waist and her panties down around her knees, then unzipped his trousers, freeing his cock from its confines._

_Feeling him against her, Rey arched back, rubbing herself against him like a cat in heat. She hadn’t realized how hormonal she had gotten, but the thought of him filling her up was enough to have her dripping down her thighs._

_Ben lifted himself to her entrance, than slid home as Rey moaned under him. He fucked her roughly, but his hands were always gentle, and the kisses along her spine made her shake._

_“You’re so hot and tight around me, baby girl,” Ben ground out between clenched teeth, leaning back to increase his speed, holding her at her hips. Rey looked back at him over her shoulder, smiling at him just before tightening her muscles, making Ben’s pace go erratic and harder than he intended._

_“Yes, Ben, that’s it, right there,” Rey moaned, her fingers whitening within the sheets._

_“I’m not going to last long, Rey,” Ben revealed, bottoming out inside her before he reached forward and rubbed at her clit. The thought that he was fucking the mother of his child was more of a turn on then he would admit to her._

_“Uh, uh, just cum in me, baby,” Rey spread her legs a bit more, crying out when he hit the perfect spot. “Oh fuck!”_

_Ben gripped her hips and thrust as deeply as he could, knowing that if she wasn’t pregnant before, she likely would be after that._

_After he had brought a towel and cleaned her up, Rey slept while Ben took a picture of the pregnancy test and sent it to his father, asking for advice._

**_Han Solo [10:38pm]: Shit, Ben._ **

* * *

 

_Eleven weeks pregnant. She was almost three months pregnant, the doctor had said. She had been lucky to not experience morning sickness, but the doctor told her to come in every two weeks for a checkup to make sure everything was alright._

_Ben had been to attentive, it was almost annoying if it wasn’t sweet. She didn’t even feel pregnant and he was doing everything she could ever ask of him, even though she wasn’t asking. He had even wanted to be there with her when she told Finn and Poe, and after some careful pleading on his part, she had given in._

_So there they were, all four of them at her dining room table._

_“So,” Finn began, looking between the two of them. “You said you wanted to tell us something?”_

_“Are you guys breaking up?” Poe asked jokingly, but Ben shot him a malicious glare._

_“On the contrary,” Ben began, but Rey held her hand up to stop him._

_“Actually, I’m pregnant.”_

_Finn and Poe had similar, but very, **very** different reactions. Both were shocked, but where Finn was almost happy, Poe was devastated. The man had been, not exactly hoping for Rey’s relationship to end, but for a mutual conclusion so that she wouldn’t be hurt and he could swoop in and prove that he was the better match. But, if she was pregnant…_

_“Congratulations!”_

_“You’re only nineteen!”_

_Both men shouted at the same time, and both men looked at one another after._

_“She’s so young, Finn!” Poe started._

_“It’s her life, Poe. Come on man, what’s it going to help for you to not be excited for them?” Finn leaned over the table, grabbing Rey’s hand it bringing it to his lips. “Congratulations, Muffin.”_

_She had a feeling Poe wasn’t going to be excited. Poe had always been very against her relationship with Ben, not very fond of the man. Obviously he would be against her having a baby with the man. Still, it made Rey sad that he couldn’t be happy for her._

_“Poe…” Rey began. “Please,” she stood up, walking over to him. Poe looked down at her belly before looking back up at her. “This is a child. My child.” She rubbed her stomach, smiling down at it. “Can’t you be happy for us?” She found his gaze once more, seeing his hardened stare softening. “For me?”_

_Poe’s hand lifted, pressing palm down against her stomach, above where Ben knew his child was growing. He hated seeing the other man touch her. He hated how gently his hand caressed her. Hated the obvious attraction the man felt for his girlfriend so much he wanted to punch it off of his face._

_But the happiness on Rey’s face when he finally nodded was worth all of the pride he lost in the moment._

_“Congrats, Rey.” Poe turned, his glare returning. “Ben.”_

_Ben nodded towards the man, then turned to smile once more at his girlfriend who was still holding onto her stomach. He was going to have a family. Him and Rey were going to be a family._

* * *

 

_“So, you’re telling me your dad already knows?” Rey asked from the passenger seat as Ben put their things in the trunk._

_He cursed himself for even telling his father. He had asked him not to tell his mom so that Rey and him could do it when they were ready, but the old bastard had broken his promise. Leia called them the day before and asked them to come down that weekend so that they could explain why they waited over a month before telling her._

_Ben had to give it to her, he had expected his mom to have confronted them long before that, but it was likely for Rey’s sake that she waited._

_“I told you, I asked my father because I wanted some advice.” Ben walked around to the front, sitting in his seat and turning towards Rey. “I’m sorry, little bird. I should have told you.”_

_Rey groaned in her seat, rolling her eyes and laying her head against the window. “Your ‘little bird’ isn’t going to work this time, Ben Solo!” She rubbed her stomach. “You’re stressing me out.”_

_“Don’t say that, baby,” Ben smiled, leaning over and kissing her still flat stomach._

_“Sorry,” Rey responded, putting her hand in Ben’s black hair, pushing it from his face. He had been letting it grow out more, it was almost brushing his shoulders now. “You know we love you. Me and little Garbage Disposal.”_

_“Stop calling him that,” Ben warned, a tilt at the corner of his lips._

_Rey shook her head, meeting him half way for a kiss, “No.”_

_Chuckling, Ben pulled away from her, putting himself fully back into his own seat. “Fine, but at least-“_

_“Ow!” Rey screamed, making Ben jump in his seat. “Ben, Ben, the baby!”_

_Ben jumped out of the car, running around to open her door. His heart was thrumming in his chest, his own stomach turning painfully. “Baby girl?” Ben asked, looking her over as she continued writhing in the seat._

_When he went to pull her from the car, he felt something wet on his finger, and when he pulled it away, Ben saw red._

* * *

 

_“I have good news,” the doctor said, walking toward Ben who had been knelt down against the wall in the hallway, Leia and Han standing by his side._

_“Rey?” Ben asked, standing up quickly and brushing his mother’s hands off of him._

_“Your wife is going to be fine,” the doctor told him, but his face wasn’t a happy one. Ben didn’t even think to correct the man, the word sounded fitting. But still, he knew there was something he hadn’t told him._

_“Is it… The baby?” Ben asked, and the doctor hesitated. “Is our baby okay?”_

_The doctor didn’t need to say anything, the look on his face let them know enough. Ben shoved passed the man, he needed to get to Rey. His mother called for him, but he was already off, running down the hallway like a bat out of hell._

_Did Rey know?_

_Had they told her?_

_He needed to see her._

_“-away from me!” Her scream filled his ears, breaking his heart into pieces. They had told her. “Where’s Ben? Find Ben!”_

_Ben pushed open the door, ignoring the doctors who were telling him he wasn’t able to see her yet. “You’re going to have to kill me if you want to get me out of this room,” he growled out, glaring at the people blocking her from him. “I suggest you fucking move.”_

_“Ben!” Rey cried, and Ben shoved towards her, leaning over the bed to pull her into a hug. “Ben, our baby… Our baby’s gone.”_

_Her tears covered his shirt, seeping through and chilling his shoulder. “I know, little bird, I know.”_

_“Why did he leave me?” she asked, her body still shaking and convulsing._

_Ben couldn’t breathe. He didn’t know what to do. His entire body felt like a cocoon holding the real him hostage from within its walls, leaving him unable to comprehend the situation of the outside world. “It-It was a boy?” he questioned, not caring about the childish tone that soaked through his voice._

_Rey only nodded into his neck. “He left me, Ben! He left me,” Rey screamed out, pushing away from him. “I don’t know what to do, I can’t think, Ben. I can’t think, I can’t hardly breathe, my heart **aches**. I feel completely empty.” Ben realized that if he was feeling those things, she must be feeling a hundred times worse. She was the one who had held their baby within her. She was its mother, its caretaker. She had lost not only a part of them, something they made, but a part of her that had still been attached._

_She was no longer whole._

_He had to give her time to be complete again, but she would get through it. They would get through it._

_Although, it sure as hell didn’t feel like it right then._

_“We’re going to be okay, Rey,” Ben pulled her to him, despite her hitting at his chest as he did so. The feeling was blunt, not painful but unpleasant. He didn’t want her to hurt her hands, however. “We’re going to be okay.”_

_“No! You’re going to leave me too.”_

_“No, I’m not,” he kissed her neck, breathing her in. “I told you before, and I’ll tell you again. I’m never going to leave you.”_

* * *

 

_He caught her staring at the pregnancy test exactly eight times before he said something._

_“Maybe we should put it in the box, little bird.”_

_“Yeah, I will.” Rey gripped her hand tighter around the stick. “Soon.”_

* * *

 

_“We’re going to have to find a sitter,” her coworker Andrea said, talking to Rey and another girl they worked near. “Lucus is getting into so much trouble these days. It almost makes me wonder why I even had a kid,” she jests good naturedly, but Rey imploded, only to also explode._

_“Don’t you think you’re lucky?” She asked with a bite. “Don’t you think you got blessed?”_

_“Rey?” Andrea asked, confused, only to see Rey storm from her desk and leave the two women thoroughly chastised._

_Ben had been told by the woman what had happened when he came by to pick her up for lunch, and knew without thought where she had gone._

_“Little bird, I know you’re in there,” he spoke, gently knocking on the door. When there was no response, he tried again. “Baby, please say something.”_

_He could hear the deadbolt unlock, and then slowly, the door slid open to reveal a disheveled Rey before him. “Can I come in?” he asked, to which Rey nodded and stepped out of the way. When he walked in, he saw the pregnancy test on the couch. The printed words on the front were worn off by then, and Ben thought for a moment that he heard a baby crying._

_Must have been a neighbors kid._

_“Come here, kid,” Ben said, dragging Rey into him. “I’m sorry about what happened at work.”_

_“Andrea told you?”_

_Ben nodded. “She didn’t know what was going on, but yes.”_

_“It’s so hard, Ben,” Rey told him, crumbling to the floor. Ben followed after her. “When I see a family walking down the street, I feel as if I’m going to fall through some unknown hole and never be able to see or hear or feel again.” She shook before him. “Lately, I don’t want to deny myself. I just want to dive in and give up.”_

_“You know, my mother went through this before,” Ben spoke softly._

_“She-She did?” Rey inquired, her legs bent at an awkward angle._

_Ben nodded, running his hands up her legs. “She was going to have a daughter with my father three years before I was born, but there was difficulties. I asked her to come and talk to you,” he twirled her long brown hair in between his fingers, the feeling of her hair moving at the scalp calming. “Is that okay?”_

_“If you think it could help.”_

_“I do.”_

* * *

_Ben stood in the doorway as Rey rested her head in his mother’s lap, the older woman dragging her hands through the love of his life’s hair. His heart chugged smoothly as he watched Rey’s eyes droop with Leia’s words and motions._

_Beside them sat the box with a tiny tape label that said ‘Garbage Disposal’ in sharpie._

_He had never been so thankful for his mother in his life._

_“Ben, come sit,” Leia requested, and Rey opened her eyes to him and smiled, holding one hand out._

_Ben immediately came._

_He’d always come to her._

* * *

_“Is she with you?” Ben asked through the phone._

_“No, I haven’t talked to her all morning,” Finn responded._

_“Is she with… Poe?” The thought made Ben’s stomach lurch. Rey had been so absent lately. He thought she was doing better, she had seemed much more content the past few months since she got to go over and talk to his mother once a week, but now she was disappearing and not answering his phone calls for hours._

_She had been complaining about his apartment, making him feel as if she hated being there with him._

_She apparently wasn’t seeing her friends anymore. Well, she wasn’t seeing Finn. Perhaps she was seeing Poe. Perhaps she was seeing Poe every Saturday morning and then coming home late at night to sleep in a bed she hated with him._

_“…I haven’t talked to him today either.” The hesitation in her friends voice was telling._

_Ben felt his knees buckle beneath him. “Thanks,” and hung up the phone._

_The suitcase stared back at him. He had been careful about bringing his stuff over to Rey’s apartment because he intended on asking her to come stay with him, but recently with all of her complaining, telling him to come stay with her, he hadn’t gotten up the courage to go through with it. She always wanted to go to her own, so there was no way she would want to stay with him._

* * *

 

_“Thanks for the ride, Poe!” Rey said, walking into her apartment. “I think Ben’s here and I haven’t seen him all day, so I’m going to let you go. Uh huh,” she laughed. “Alright, yeah. Bye!”_

_“Don’t get off the phone on my behalf,” Ben said, leaning against the wall._

_“Excuse me?” Rey questioned. He seemed to be in a bad mood, but it may just have been because he hadn’t been able to spend time with her in a while. She told him she was hanging out with a girl from work, but he had never met the girl and she was sure he wasn’t believing it. But, Rey knew she wanted to keep his birthday present a secret, so the big idiot could get as moody as he wanted. She was excited to see his face light up with realization whenever he found out what she was actually doing._

_Although, she had started to feel bad recently for lying to him, so she brought him a present so he could maybe get a hint that she was doing **something** for him, even if the present had nothing really to do with the main one._

_“This isn’t working,” he spoke, coldly._

_He couldn’t be saying what she thought he was saying, surely? But the look on his face, the determination in his gaze…_

_It was as if the blood fled through her veins like a pack of wild stallions that had been startled, leaking through every pore on her body and leaving her cold, uncirculated, and empty. Her right hand felt heavy, like the weight of the world was somehow thrusted into it in a matter of moments, and now she was bearing it all alone. Her body was off balance, the weight beginning to be too much to handle. Rey leaned over onto the back of the couch to maintain stability, trying to get her breathing under control._

_“What?” Was all her pathetic brain could manage._

_Ben, on the other hand, looked carefree. As if the stress he had been under for months had been taken from him, bundled together, and strapped haphazardly onto her. He didn’t even bother to look at her when he repeated it. “This isn’t working.”_

_“Ben,” Rey chanced a step forward, only for her heart to completely shatter in her chest when he paralleled the movement. “We… We’ve been together for two years.” Her breathing was growing sporadic, uncontainable. “Two years, Ben!”_

_He nodded, watching the turned off television in her apartment. Not theirs, no, never theirs. All the times he had declined moving in with her were now filling her thoughts and her stomach with lead. “Yes, two years. We got together when you were eighteen, Rey. You haven’t even lived your life.”_

_“What the fuck are you talking about?!” She was shouting now, but she couldn’t help it. This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not like this. “I-I have lived my life! I’ve lived it with you!”_

_“Well, maybe I haven’t gotten to live mine!”_

_The pain that stabbed through her chest was almost tangible, she was certain somehow Ben had been able to feel it. Like he would have felt it and immediately apologized, falling to his knees and whispering ‘sorry’ and ‘I didn’t mean to yell at you’ and ‘I’m not going to leave you, not like them’._

_Instead, his large and sure feet took him further away._

_It was difficult to make sense of everything that was happening through her tunnel vision. She could see him leaning down to grab something. Something large. A bag? As if he had left enough stuff at her place for him to fill a fucking bag._

_“Have a good one, alright, kid?”_

_The next thing she knew, she was dry heaving on the floor behind her couch, shirt sticking to her damp skin and sending a chill through what nerves were still cooperating with her. She still felt like the world was lying on top of her, suffocating her, drawing each breath from her lungs by piercing them with a shovel, but her right hand was no longer holding the brunt of the nauseating load._

_On the floor beside her, a small brown box that contained a pristine grey button sat._

* * *

 

Rey opened her eyes, the smell of breakfast wafting through the air. She was momentarily confused before she remembered what she had done last night, and who with.

Groaning to herself, she sat up in her bed and climbed to grab a t-shirt and underwear before trudging out into the unknown, unsure of what she would find. Ben making himself breakfast? Finn wasn’t supposed to be home all weekend, but maybe God was on her side for once and he had come home early, just after Ben left.

What if Ben hadn’t left and Finn saw him?

What if Ben hadn’t left and Finn wasn’t there at all?

Looking around the wall of the hallway, Rey saw none other than Ben shirtless in her kitchen flipping a pancake over. He had bacon sitting on a plate before him and a carton of eggs on the counter to his right.

“Good morning,” he said, and Rey jumped. How did he _do_ that?! He hadn’t even been looking at her!

“Morning,” she responded, not moving.

“I wasn’t sure which one you would want more, pancakes or eggs and bacon, so I made all three,” he said matter of factly.

Not taking the bait he was subtly laying out for her, Rey moved closer to him with her arms covering her chest. “Why are you still here?”

Hurt flashed over his face and quickly left, but Rey didn’t care. He was the asshole in this situation. There was little she could do that would make her the bad guy, so she had full reign to talk to him like the piece of shit he was. “We said we would discuss this in the morning. So, I’m here to discuss it.”

“No,” Rey amended. “ _You_ said we would discuss it. It’s always you making the major decisions.” She stood beside the fridge, still rigid and angry. “Besides, there’s nothing to discuss. I’m with Poe.” She wasn’t.

He knew that.

“You weren’t with Poe last night,” he retorted, glaring at her from above her skillet.

“Last night was a mistake.”

Ben reached forward, turning off the stove and sitting down the spatula he had been using. “It was a mistake to you?”

Rey’s arms dropped, but she still stood tall and determined. “The biggest one I’ve made since dating you.”

“ _I_ was a mistake to you?” He asked, walking towards her.

“Yes,” Rey muttered. “Only a mistake would make me cry as much as you did. Only a mistake would leave me with so many regrets.”

The anger that had been growing on Ben’s face fell, and all that was left was an apology. “I never wanted you to cry, or regret the time we had together.”

“Well, tough. Because I did, and I do.”

“I’m so sorry, Rey,” Ben whispered, his hands falling onto her shoulders. “And I know that sorry doesn’t cut it, and that actions speak louder than words. And that’s why I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to make you forgive me.”

“You can start by leaving.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she wanted to take them back. They were harsh and rude, and as much as Rey wanted to hate Ben for what he did to her, to _them_ , she didn’t want to see the hurt on his face that she was the cause of. Part of her hoped he would fight her on it, or shove her against the counter and fuck her right there to make her forget how horrible he made her feel.

But this new Ben, he was understanding. And as much as she didn’t want that right then, she knew she needed it. “I’m going to go grab my clothes. Just,” he looked down, then back at her. “Text me if you need me.”

Then he disappeared into her bedroom, and Rey could finally breathe again. Her rose-colored glasses were abruptly removed from her head, and the situation became more clear. Ben had ruined them. Hadn’t even bothered to ask her about her actions before he removed himself from her life for a year and a half. She had no obligation to forgive the man, no reason to give up any more of her life to him. She was still young, she had her whole life ahead of her. Why should she waste it on him?

She was thinking clearly for the first time in hours.

That was, of course, until someone knocked on the door. She knew immediately that it was Poe. He always knocked with a specific rhythm, and as it sounded on the door, Rey’s stomach fell out of her ass.

Ben walked towards her with pants on and a shirt in his hand. “Are you going to answer that?”

“Of course not!” she screeched, turning towards the man who still had sex hair. God only knows how _she_ looked. “It’s Poe! It’ll break him if he sees you here.”

His eyes narrowed. “Are you going to take him back?”

No. “That’s none of your business!” It wasn’t. She wasn’t dating Ben again, she didn’t owe him anything.

Ben took a step back, the hurt on his face now a mix of anger and what she knew to be defiance. “You’re right, it’s not.” Still holding his shirt in his hands, Ben walked forward and opened the door to a frantic Poe.

“Rey, look- Ben? What are you… Where’s Rey?” He spat, glaring daggers from the welcome mat.

“She’s right over there,” Ben said, slipping his shirt back on. “I cooked breakfast if you want some. She doesn’t seem to have an appetite,” he grabbed his keys from the table beside the door, letting Poe get a glimpse of an open mouthed Rey standing in her shirt and underwear. “She must still be full from last night.”

That did it.

“You stupid son of a bitch,” Rey bit out, almost as pissed off with herself as she was him for letting herself cry over something he did again. “I knew you hadn’t changed! I knew this was all some fucking act you were using to get in my pants again.” Ben turned around from his place in the hallway, watching as Poe walked in and ignored his own pain to comfort Rey. Even worse, Rey let the man put his hands on her. “And I was the idiot that fell for it! I’m so _fucking stupid_!”

Ben watched with growing rage as Poe brushed the tears from her face. The shorter man whispered to her, and Rey looked to him before turning a glare to Ben again. Poe’s fingers rubbed all along her skin, cleaning her from the anger she was feeling towards him. It was like walking in on another man fucking your wife.

He stood for a few moments, waiting for her to acknowledge him, but it wasn’t until the other man’s hand brushed her side, then her stomach that Ben completely lost it.

“Don’t fucking touch her!” Ben finally screamed. “Get your fucking hands off of her, Dameron!”

“Go fuck yourself, Solo,” Poe responded, leaving his hands very much on her.

“Rey,” Ben said, restraining his anger as he spoke to her. “You told me. Last night, you _told me_.”

_“You’re mine,” Ben ground out between gritted teeth, one hand curled around the back of her neck while the other rubbed her off. “Mine. No one else can fucking touch you like this.”_

_Rey nodded, only half aware of what she was agreeing to._

_“Say it, Rey.”_

_“I’m all yours!” She finally screeched, throwing herself into a sitting position and wrapping her small arms around his thick neck as she came again, covering their lower halves in her juices._

_Ben thrusted once, twice, three times before sinking himself as deep as he could get and releasing into her while attaching his lips to her shoulder._

Not knowing what to do, Rey took a step back, leaving Poe standing alone between them.

“What’s he talking about, Rey? What did you tell him?” Poe asked, watching the woman he loved grow more and more flustered. When she didn’t answer, he turned to Ben. “What did she tell you, you fucking bastard?”

“I already said something I shouldn’t have that pissed her off,” Ben said, leaning against the threshold of the door. “If she wants to tell you, she can.”

“Rey,” Poe turned his pleading eyes to her. “Just tell him to leave and then we can discuss this, alright? I know what you did last night, and I know you only did it because you were afraid. I should have waited to tell you I loved you. I know that now.” An almost growl sounded from behind Poe, and Rey looked over his shoulder to see Ben’s hands clenched into tight fist. Poe was either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid to be talking to her like he wasn’t there. “Please, baby,” his hand lifted to touch her face, and Rey saw Ben lift from the wall at the sight of it.

Before he could brush her face, Rey grabbed his hand, stopping him. “Poe, I can’t.”

“What?” Him and Ben asked at the same time.

“You’ve known, haven’t you?” Rey asked, smiling sadly up at him. “That I didn’t feel the same way? I love you, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve loved you as a friend, a best friend, for years.” She shook her head. “That isn’t going to change.”

Poe dropped his hand. “So… You’re getting back with him?”

“No,” Rey immediately said, seeing Bens shoulders fall several feet away. “At least, not yet. I don’t know right now. He did something horrible to me, but It’s not unforgivable.” Rey looked down at her feet. “I never meant to hurt you. I really did want to love you the way you love me.”

“So, if you could, you would have chosen to love me?” He asked.

Rey looked at him, not quite sure how to answer. This was a very difficult situation. “I would have been blessed to be able to fall in love with you, Poe Dameron.” Tilting forward, Rey gave him a chaste kiss, one that made up for that mistletoe kiss they were deprived of all those years ago.

Poe bobbed his head, breathing deeply as he leaned his forehead against hers. She could practically feel Ben’s glare through Poe’s lean body. “I’m not going to say it doesn’t feel like my heart just got stomped on the floor, but I can’t force you to return my feelings.” He kissed her head, then pulled back. “I’m still here for you, even if it’s only as a friend.” Rubbing his thumb along her lower lip, he smiled. “And if this asshole ever gives you trouble, or you decide he’s not worth your time, I’ll drop whatever I’m doing to make you happy.”

“You fucking asshole,” Ben said from the other side of the room. “Leave already!”

Rey laughed, pushing Poe back. “I’ll see you at work?”

Poe nodded, turning to walk by Ben. “Treat her better this time, alright dick bag?”

“I plan on it,” Ben responded, some alpha male agreement passing between them before Poe walked out of the door, and Ben kicked it closed behind him.

“Didn’t I tell you to leave?” Rey asked, only to grow rigid when Ben swiftly pulled her into a hug. “What are you doing?”

“I’m sorry. I know you hate feeling like you’re losing friends,” he squeezed her tighter. “As much as I hate Dameron, especially now, I know he’s always been good to you. I’m sure he won’t give up your friendship over this.” Ben’s hands pulled her body off of the floor, letting her legs wrap around him as he felt her begin to sob. “Shh, little bird. It’s okay.”

“He hates me,” she wept into his neck.

Ben shook his head above her, burying his face in her own neck. “No, he’s upset. He’s angry. He’s probably pretty hurt.” Ben moved forward, sitting her on the dining room table before he kissed her temple, then leaned back to rub his thumbs along her trail of tears. “But he could never hate you. No one could ever hate you.”

Rey wiped at the tears that were beginning to roll down her neck, laughing at their situation. “I never thought you’d be comforting me over another guy.”

“I’m comforting you over a friend, whether it’s a guy or a girl.” Ben ran his own thumb along her lips. “Although I can’t lie and tell you I don’t want to erase every trace of him from your body and mind.”

Rey sucked in a deep breath, her mind frying suddenly. “O-Okay.”

Not expecting that response, Ben pulled his hand away from her face. “Okay?”

“I’ve been thinking about us, Ben,” Rey said, her thumb caressing his clavicle. “Thinking of our time together.” She couldn’t bring herself to tell him what conclusion she had come up with, she was too scared, too nervous. “I’m not saying this is us getting back together, or that I forgive you,” Rey quickly supplied, seeing the hope in his eyes and her stomach turning. “But, yeah. Okay.” She scooted forward, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Make me forget every guy but you.”

Ben groaned in his throat, dipping forward to taste her mouth. Rey opened her lips, her tongue diving forward to play with his own, her fingers digging into his skull. Smiling at her enthusiasm, Ben pulled away.

“What are you doing?” She asked.

Kneeling before her, Ben lifted her foot and kissed the top. “I’m going to kiss every part of your body so there’s nowhere left that he might have touched and I haven’t.” Another kiss to her ankle had Rey sighing, a chill running down her spine.

“Ben,” Rey exhaled, a smile on her lips as she watched the tall, muscular man worship her legs. He kissed and sucked behind her knee, laying her right leg over his shoulder as he continued his journey upwards. Once he got to her inner thigh, he bit down, sucking deeply onto the skin until she was sure he’d left a bruise.

“You smell so good, Rey,” Ben murmured, nuzzling the joint of her leg, his nose nudging the lining of her underwear. Planting a chaste, sweet kiss above her underwear, he moved back down and began again on her left foot, smiling innocently up at her when she cried out in frustration. “Be patient, Little Bird.”

“I don’t want to be patient,” Rey growled, spreading her legs wide, satisfied when his eyes skimmed up her legs to the place she had just exposed.

“I’m not going to spoil you,” Ben whispered against the skin of her calf.

Rey let her hand slowly slither down until it was in front of her underwear. “Fine, I can spoil myself. Although I wish it was you,” Rey slid her hand beneath her underwear. “It’s been so long since I’ve had your mouth on me,” she moaned, closing her eyes as her fingers pressed down on her engorged clit.

Yelping, Rey’s eyes flashed open when she felt strong hands on her hips, looking down to see a desperate Ben pulling at her underwear. Once he had them passed her knees, he forgot about them, bending beneath her legs until his head came back up between them, her underwear caught around them at the back of his head. Rey opened her mouth to point out his indigence, when his tongue slipped between her folds and settled on the nub she had recently been fondling.

“Oh fuck me, Ben!” Rey screamed, falling back onto the table with a thud.

She felt the wet muscle rubbing all along her sensitive skin, slipping and sliding, applying just the right pleasure until she was practically doing sit ups from the spasming in her body. His large hands grabbed her thighs, holding her to his face with ease as he dove in further, his face shaking bath in forth while he sucked deeply.

Rey managed to sit up, desperate to watch him feast on her, only to nearly faint at the sight of him wet and smiling up at her, eyes caught on her own while he ate her out with abandon.

“Uhn, uhn, right there, oh please yes, right _there_!” Rey begged, feeling her lower half begin to tingle familiarly. She felt one of his fingers slide through her folds onto to settle on her entrance, before sinking in to his knuckle. “Ben, I’m going to-to cum. Ben, oh god!” He added his middle finger, then began a brutal pace that made Rey scream, sure to disturb any nearby neighbors.

Ben sucked hard, rubbing the tip of his tongue along her clit rapidly as his fingers made squelching noises.

“I’m, I’m, ah!” Rey yelled, and Ben groaned against her as he watched the woman he loved cum all over his face, her own face prettily scrunched up in pleasure. He had never seen a woman more beautiful than her, but when she was like this, she was like a Goddess to him. He was but a mere peasant at her feet, eager for even the littlest thing she was willing to give him. He’d make her cum time and time again without once asking for his own pleasure if she wanted that from him.

If he knew now what he did almost two years ago, he’d have thrown her on the couch and fucked her, then asked her why she had been leaving on her days off. He’d have moved into her little apartment with her just like she wanted, because even if it was small, she felt comfortable in it and as long as he had a bed to make love to her on and a kitchen to cook for her in, he could have cared less.

He could easily say it was the biggest mistake he had ever made in his life, not that his mother hadn’t been telling him that since it happened. Not that _everyone_ hadn’t been telling him that.

“Ben,” a whimper called to him, and he looked up at her disheveled before him, leaning on her elbows to meet his gaze.

He wiped his face off before climbing to his feet and going into her arms, his lips meeting her own gently, with reverence.

‘I’m sorry,’ his kiss said. ‘Forgive me,’ he continued, hoping his message got through to her.

“Your clothes,” Rey breathed against his lips that tasted like her. “Take them off.”

Without a seconds hesitation, Ben quickly removed his clothes, tossing them on the floor before crawling back on top of her, feeling nothing but relief when her small legs wrapped around his waist.

“Ben,” Rey whined from beneath him.

He reached down, lining himself up with her entrance. With ease, he slid inside, submerging his face within her neck, leaving kisses all along the stretched side. “You’re so amazing,” he muttered against her.

Rey giggled, a sound she had only ever released during sex haze. Still, it was something he hadn’t heard in so long. Ben could nearly feel tears in his eyes, and so held his face against her neck once more, hiding it from her sight.

Lifting his hips, Ben dove into her once more, making her jump and whimper. His cock stretched her, and her pussy squeezed him until he felt like he could cum at any moment. It was the second most amazing feeling he’d ever felt, second only to when she gave him one of her smiles that was born from pure happiness. He’d do whatever he could to see one of those again.

Pushing back his orgasm, Ben lowered his arms, hooking them beneath her knees until he had her lifted slightly from the table, screaming into his ear as he plowed deeply into her, every thrust making her clamp down on his cock.

“I love you,” Ben cried out against the skin of her neck. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

Before he could even finish, Rey bawled, “I know, I know! Please cum inside me, Ben!”

Overwhelmed by her own neediness in the situation, Ben lifted his head so he could watch her. “I love you, Rey,”  his body started shaking feeling her own do the same, so he slowed down, making Rey scream out in anger. “Do you still love me?”

The question took her off guard, but she didn’t hesitate before nodding her head.

“You have to tell me,” he emphasized it by thrusting in fast and deep, making her body tense and quiver.

Rey tried her best to catch her breath, looking at him with heavily hooded eyes. “I still love you, Ben Solo.”

And just like that, he lost completely control. Ben shoved himself deep before dragging his cock out and thrusting in again, making Rey cry out for the thousandth time. “Are you sure?”

“Yes!” She screamed, crossing her legs at his back. “Please cum in me.”

Not wanting nor willing to deny her, he did just that, pumping into her while she came around him, filling her with his cum until he was sure she was full. He breathed heavily against her skin, still inside her while he began to soften.

“Oh no,” Rey said, breathless beneath him.

“What?” He asked, suddenly worried she had changed her mind. They weren’t exactly together again, but Ben was sure it was only a matter of time.

A laugh left her lips, one of _those_ laughs that were always accompanied by one of _those_ smiles. The ones that rang true happiness, the ones that made him feel as if everything else in the world didn’t need to make sense as long as she was happy and beside him.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat at this table with Finn and Rose again.”

Kissing her swollen red lips, Ben beamed down at her. “Then come eat at my table. Every morning, every night.” He shifted himself, feeling her clench around him almost painfully before he kissed her once more, pulling out.

“What are you saying, Ben?” Rey asked, lifting herself on her wobbly elbows.

He lifted a hand, rubbing her cheek. “I’m saying, Rey, that I want you to come live with me.”

Oh.

Rey wasn’t sure how to answer him when she had intended on telling him she’d decided it was best for them to not get back together again.

“Um…”


	3. Complicated Friendship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We find out if Rey and Ben can become friends, and possibly something more again. But first, they'll have to endure a few ups and downs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end is here! Thank you guys for being so patient with me. I went over this chapter three times to edit and correct any mistakes, but I only have time to do so at night so I'm hoping I got them all.
> 
> With that being said, enjoy!

“Ben,” Rey muttered, scooting from the table to grab her underwear. “We need to talk.”

Ben sat up, suddenly feeling uncomfortable in his nudity with the speed that she had redressed. Vulnerability was not something he felt like revealing, even to her.

Scratch that; _especially_ to her.

He wasn’t too fond of placing his vulnerabilities within the one person capable of breaking him.

Following the petite woman’s lead, Ben pulled his pants back on, doing everything he could to ignore the panic within himself that was threatening to spill over into anger. The last thing he wanted was for him to lose control and make her hate him more. Still, his stomach was lead, dragging along the floor as he tried his best not to slouch on his way to lean against the counter. Breakfast sat on plates beside him, growing cold with neglect.

Once his eyes were finally settled on her, unconsciously tracing the remaining flush on her cheeks from their previous activities, she cleared her throat and spoke.

“I’m not going to move in with you.”

An audible gulp was heard, sounding like he had broadcasted it on a loud speaker. “You don’t need to respond now-“

Rey shook her head, whirling to look at him. Her expression was stern, mouth set, and while she felt the bite of anger, she kept it under wraps. Ben’s passion would feed off it and she needed to make sure he was hearing her words and not her actions, because those were what she trusted right then. “No, I will respond, because I don’t need to wait to know my answer. I’m not getting back together with you right now. I may never get back with you.”

“Rey-“

“Let me finish,” she scolded, then schooled her expression once more when he looked thoroughly chastised. If this were any other time, she may have laughed at how she had tamed the enormous man in that moment. “Yes, we were together for two years, but we were apart for nearly the same.” She walked to the sink beside him, pulling out a rag and running it through the water, soaking it. “You can’t expect things to be like they were before. I’m not the same girl I was when you broke up with me.”

Rey laughed out loud, moving past him to begin to clean the table from where their heat imprints were beginning to fade. “’Broke up with’ isn’t exactly the correct term. Walked out on, might be more effective.” She heard him moving closer and spun quickly, holding her finger up in the air. “Stay where you are. Don’t come closer. What just happened was a mistake, I shouldn’t have confused you like I did, it was a moment of weakness and nothing more.”

She saw him flinch as if she hit him, but continued on nonetheless. “I know you regret what you did, I do. But no matter what, the fact of the matter is that it happened and everything I’ve felt, everything I’ve done since then- sleeping with Poe, moving in with Finn- those are things that have happened and I refuse to let you wipe them away and pretend as if they didn’t.” Rey walked forward, pushing Ben lightly so that he would meet her eyes once more. “I’ve moved on since you left me, and if you want to pursue something, that’s fine, feel free to convince me,” Rey raised her chin, her barriers high and proud within her mind and heart, the doors he had once formed within now boarded up as if he had released a hurricane within. Perhaps he had. “But it’s on you. I’m not going to put effort into something I didn’t ruin and no longer need.”

Ben remained silent. The least he could do right then was let her vent to him, let her create a plan with her words of what he must do to make it all better. To make them happy. “If we end up together, it’s because I want you,” she smiled sadly. “Because I don’t need you anymore. I don’t need anyone, and you have to learn that.”

“I don’t think that you need me, Rey,” Ben tried, but she could tell he at the very least wanted her to. He wanted her to need him, to wilt without him like a rose plucked from its stem.

Well, that was no longer her. She was going to thrive no matter her situation.

“So, you’re fine with being just friends?”

Did friends fuck on their roommates table? Even the word “friend” coming from her lips made his body hurt. He was terrified that she would begin to see him as just a friend and not be able to view him as anything but. “I’m fine with whatever you want me to be. As long as I get to be near you.”

He took a step away from her when she threw her hands out, groaning loudly. “That’s what I’m talking about, Ben! I know you love me, and I love you too, but we can’t be each other’s everything. You have to have more friends, and if you want to be close with me, you need to become friends with my friends as well. I won’t be separating parts of my life again. Not for anyone.”

“Okay,” he quickly replied. “I need more people in my life besides you. Fine, that sounds…” He complained internally. “Healthy.”

Rey grabbed two forks from her drawer, slipping one to him before digging into the eggs he had covered on a plate. Moaning around the taste, Rey spoke through her food. “And no more sleeping together.”

“No more sex?” He asked, trying his best to hide his disappointment and failing miserably.

“With each other.”

So she was going to have sex with someone else? Fist clenched, he nodded, not wanting to upset her. He understood that she had changed, but he wasn’t sure he could stand on the side lines as she fucked someone else. Rey was his. She was his… Person. He got that she didn’t want to be everything to him, and he’d try to remember that, but she was always going to be almost everything. He couldn’t change that. He wouldn’t.

“I’m going to clean up after breakfast, and then head out,” he spoke up, bounding past her and further into the kitchen.

“You sure?” Rey inquired, but he heard the disinterest in her voice.

He was the biggest fucking idiot in the entire galaxy for causing this.

“Yeah,” he leaned forward, kissing her temple and moving around her to pick up the now empty skillet.

Rey smiled at the man, seeing him struggling with all of this. She wasn’t sure how long it would last, nor was she sure she would ever fully forgive him for what he did to her, but she knew that she didn’t trust him anymore. Trust isn’t freely given, at least not anymore. Once broken, it’s harder to give again.

_‘I won’t leave you like them.’_

Yeah, Rey Kenobi didn’t trust Ben Solo a god damn bit.

 

* * *

 

“You cheated on Poe with Ben fucking Solo?” Finn shouted from across the room. Rey couldn’t see it, but she was sure his neck and cheeks were aflame with anger.

She was leaned against her door frame, arms crossed her chest and chin tilted down in indignation. She was an adult and she was allowed to make her own decisions. Not to mention- “Poe and I aren’t together anymore, so I didn’t _cheat_ on anyone, Finn.”

Rose appeared from behind him in freshly changed clothes, laying her palm on his shoulders in a comforting way. “He knows that, Rey. I think what he’s trying to get across is that he’s afraid of how this is going to affect Poe.”

The younger woman sighed, rubbing her eyes and walking forward until she was mere feet away from her best friend. “Listen, I know Poe is your best friend- well, your other best friend. I would never want to purposely hurt him, but what happened between Ben and I…” She groaned. “As much as I wish I had just kicked his large ass out, I didn’t. And that was my decision to make. It had nothing to do with Poe.” Her pride washed from her face and was replaced with a shy look. “Plus, Poe knows. He kind of dropped by when Ben was here.”

“Oh, god,” Finn responded, moving forward from his girlfriend’s grasp to drop onto the couch and hold his head in his hands.

Rey followed suit, a sheepish smile on her lips. “I guess group brunch is postponed for a little bit?”

His bright teeth shone from beneath his hands, Finn leaning back and letting out a chuckle. “I guess so.” They laughed together, and Rey felt more comfortable than she had in weeks. Her life was finally getting back on track, and she couldn’t help but think her finally letting loose on Ben was a driving factor. “Are you okay?” Finn probed, reverting back to her considerate best friend of nearly four years.

“You know what?” Rey picked her legs up, crossing them beneath her and resting the back of her head against the couch cushion behind her. “I think I am.”

Long, muscular arms wrapped behind her, pulling her into a warm side where her temple pressed against his shoulder. “I’m proud of you, Muffin.”

 

* * *

 

It had been eight days since she last spoke to Ben.

Not that it was important or anything; she was only aware of the exact amount because Finn had been asking her every day if he had texted, to which she had to continuously respond, “no.”

It was a trivial matter to her. She was busy with work and hardly even had time for her friends for the past week. Leia was handling a large client, and so Rey was left taking care of not only her normal work load, but the smaller clients that Leia wasn’t able to get to. She hadn’t left work earlier than 7pm all week.

That’s why when the older woman dropped by Rey’s office, a gentle smile on her lips as she softly spoke, “It’s Friday, and you’ve been kicking ass all week. Take the rest of the day off,” Rey didn’t bother with fake modesty and immediately finished what she was working on and got her butt out of there.

**_Finny Boy [2:55pm]: Leia let you off early? I wondered if she was going to work you to death and just section off that side of the office until you decomposed_ **

**_Finny Boy [2:55pm]: Let’s go to a club tonight. Me + Rose have been talking about taking you out. Poe said he’d want to go as well_ **

It _had_ been quite a while since she’d went out drinking with all of them. What could be the harm in it?

**_Rey [2:56pm]: I’m too important to let die. And yeah, let’s do it. Distant Galaxies?_ **

Within seconds, Finn responded with a thumbs up emoji, letting Rey know that he was working on something again and would probably be unavailable for the next hour at the least.

Rey stared at her phone for a minute, sitting in her car in the parking garage. This could be an incredibly awful decision, or one that she would thank herself for later.

Mentally, Rey began a list of pros and cons, weighing each one like Lady Justice herself. It took a few minutes, but she eventually came to a complete conclusion, that she was undoubtedly unsure of.

Rey opened the thread of messages she had been avoiding, fingers flying across the keys with ease.

**_Rey [3:01pm]: We’re all going to Distant Galaxies tonight if you wanted to go?_ **

When he didn’t respond within a few minutes, Rey started her car and began her trip home. Traffic was less than terrible considering the time, so she got home within a half hour. As she pulled her key out in the apartment hallway, she felt her phone vibrate in her pocket.

Deciding against the pettiness she felt within at him taking so long to respond, and for not texting her at all in the first place, Rey read the message as soon as she was able to.

**_Ben Solo [3:39pm]: Can’t tonight. Thanks though_ **

Biting her lip, Rey gripped the phone a little tighter. Was the bastard playing hard to get? Did he not realize she wasn’t going to fall for that? All he was doing was pushing her further away. Ben Solo was such a fucking idiot.

**_Rey [3:44pm]: Got it._ **

She refused to beg or try to guilt him into it, like she knew he expected her too. If he didn’t want to go and spend time with her, she wasn’t going to make him. _He_ was the one who wanted _her_ back, not the other way around.

Rey left her phone in the living room as she went to scavenge her closet for an outfit that would be suitable for that night, fighting off the urge to send Ben another message and simultaneously fall into his trap.

 

* * *

 

Rey was walking to the bar to get another round of shots when she saw him, maroon dress shirt and black slacks, looking every bit out of place in the crowd of people barely more than half his age.

It wasn’t like her world was rocked, or she suddenly felt light headed. The feelings that welled up within her were nothing like what they used to be, all consuming and undeniable. Instead, she took in the stubble on his chin, the dark circles under his eyes. He didn’t look great, like he had been putting in a lot of work as well, but he was just as handsome as ever.

Rey felt something akin to desire coil in the pit of her stomach when he licked his lips, eyes searching, but brushed it off easily.

Deciding to let him find her instead of the other way around, Rey continued moving towards the bar and leaned against the counter. Time slipped by as she meandered behind a group of girls wearing dresses shorter than her college career. Eventually, they passed and Rey moved in quickly before she could be pushed out of the way. “Four shots of vodka, please!”

“Make it five,” a deep voice rumbled behind her left shoulder.

Rey kept her cool, smiling at the bartender in confirmation, “five, then.” The man nodded, turning around to fulfill her order. “Thought you were too busy to come?” Rey asked over her shoulder, vocal chords straining at the volume she had to hold to be heard.

“I finished up quicker than I thought,” he spoke quietly in her ear, making her feel like an idiot for yelling in the first place, but more than that, making her hate herself when she still felt a hint of a shiver from it. “Thanks,” he told the bartender, smoothly dropping money on the counter just before grabbing up the tray of shots.

“They didn’t know you were coming, so this should be interesting.”

“Well,” Ben smirked, looking down at her as they walked. “I didn’t come here for them.”

Despite the bubbly feeling his words brought with them, Rey shook her head. “That’s not how you become friends with my friends.”

“Right,” he corrected. “I’ll do my best. Can’t promise they’ll like me.”

“If you just be yourself and the man I know you can be, I think we’ll all become really good friends.” She gave him a dazzling smile just before taking the drinks from his hands and stepping a few feet further to lay them down on the table that Finn, Rose, and Poe were standing beside. “Hey guys! Ben decided to come after all.”

“Hello,” he spoke, awkwardly. Rey laughed and he shot her a glare.

“Hi, I’m Rose, Finn’s girlfriend!” Rose was a cheery as always, indifferent to the irritation written on both of the other men’s faces. It only made Rey love her more.

“Ben,” the tall man said, holding out his hand to shake.

“We know who you are, Solo,” Finn said, then held out his own hand. “Been a while.”

Ben nodded. It was an incredibly awkward situation, and he was sure that Poe wasn’t going to speak to him the whole night, but one look at Rey and he put the thought behind him. She was practically glowing with joy. Ben had never taken the time to become friends with her friends when they had been together, and now he knew that it had been something she had always struggled with and never mentioned.

“Well, I’m a little behind everyone else. Might as well try catching up.” He reached forward, grabbing a shot, then snagging the one in front of Rey and downing one after the other.

“Hey!” She screeched, reaching for her drink even as Ben turned to keep it from her grasp. “That was mine!”

“As if you needed more,” Finn joked, picking up his own and waiting for Rose to do the same so they could shoot it back together.

Rey laughed, reaching for Poe’s, only for him to cover it with his hand. “Sorry, I already gave this one the bedroom eyes. She’s mine.” Rey fake gagged when the man picked his up and intimately licked the inside of the shot glass after emptying its contents into his throat.

“You’re the worst,” Rey chuckled, looking up at Ben.

His eyes found hers easily. “I know.”

She looked away when the light in his eyes glowed far too bright for Rey to stare directly into without blinding herself.

 

* * *

 

He was shoulder to shoulder with Rey, all five of them sweating and breathing heavily from moving through the large crowd to get to a booth that had opened up. Poe was on the other side of her, his upper body turned towards the beautiful woman between the two of them, and even Ben could see that the younger man was in love with her still. It was frustrating, but also irritatingly relatable.

The alcohol had set in some time ago, and the atmosphere had grown much more comfortable and inviting, and so that’s how he found himself explaining the story of when he walked in on his friend Hux and his girlfriend Phasma fucking in the bathroom at his work.

“I don’t think I could ever do that,” Rose said, fingers intertwined with Finn’s. “There’s so many germs in there!”

“Are you forgetting that time at your parent’s house?” Finn asked, unable to hold back his grin.

“Oh,” Rose giggled girlishly, laying her head on her boyfriend’s shoulder and kissing his neck. “I take it back.”

Rey laughed, the sound distant in her ears. She felt like her head was five feet higher than her body and that she was looking through a fish lens camera. “Ben, do you remember that time we went to Starbucks and wound up in their restroom for thirty minutes?” Ben’s ears reddened noticeably at the memory. “Never thought I’d be banned from a Starbucks before.”

“I remember you blaming me for it for the rest of the day, even though you were the one who pushed me in there in the first place.”

Rey laughed heartily, picking up her mixed drink and taking a heavy gulp. She leaned over as Poe and Finn began talking, breathing shallowly in Ben’s ear. “Want to repeat it?”

Of course he did. He’d been watching her scrunch up her cute little nose in disgust at other stories they all have told, shifting with the need to pee for the last fifteen minutes but stubbornly refusing to go, licking her dry lips with glossy eyes and inebriated blush reddening her cheeks. He wanted to lay her down on one of these tables and fuck her senseless, why would she even need to ask?

Still, he wasn’t going to act on it.

“I’m going to go get some water, do you want some?” He asked, watching as she widened her eyes at his rejection. Ben leaned in, resting his palm at the small of her back. “If I’m going to fuck you until you scream, it’s going to be when you actually want me, not when you’re plastered and horny.” He smiled, kissing just below her ear. “Until then, I’ll follow your rules and become the man you deserve.”

Ben turned around, moving to the bar without a glance behind him. By doing so, he missed the pained whine leave her lips and her eyes following him hungrily.

 

* * *

 

“You sure you don’t want to come up?” Rey asked, leaning through Ben’s passenger door with a mischievous smile quirking her red lips.

Ben laughed, shaking his head. “Goodnight, Rey.”

This time understanding and admiring his resolve, Rey nodded almost imperceptibly. “Goodnight, Mr. Solo.”

 

* * *

 

**_Rey [01:30am]: You invited him to lunch?_ **

**_Poe Dameron [10:31am]: You know that saying, ‘Keep your friends close but your enemies closer’?_ **

**_Poe Dameron [10:31am]: Well I’d rather not have any enemies, so I thought I should just stick with the first part. He’s not as awful as I thought._ **

**_Rey [10:34am]: You’re kind of incredible, you know that?_ **

**_Poe Dameron [10:35am]: Tell Leia that when she’s yelling at me three times a week_ **

**_Poe Dameron [10:37am]: I just want you to be happy._ **

**_Rey [10:39am]: With a friend like you in my life? I’ve never been happier._ **

 

* * *

 

“Tell me again how you convinced Finn to let you get a dog,” Ben said, holding the door to the animal shelter open for Rey to walk through.

“Easy,” she said, not at all annoyed to have to reiterate the story. “He bought Rose an engagement ring and couldn’t afford this month’s rent, and I just so happened to have enough to cover all of it _and_ the three-hundred dollar pet deposit.”

His broad shoulders shook with his laughter. “You’re determined, I’ll give you that.”

Rey shrugged, walking into the room labelled “DOGS!” and smiled brightly at the barking that commenced as soon as they entered. “Thanks for coming with me, by the way. I know how much you love dogs, even if you never talk about it.”

He knew she had learned about that fact from one of the times he talked about his childhood pet Archie, a huge Newfoundland that his mother had bought during a phase in Ben’s life when he had wanted her to read Peter Pan every night to him before bed.

Ben always said he wanted to get one, but when he had discussed it with Rey a few times while they were together, she had told him, “ _If we ever get a dog, it’s going to be a mutt. They need a home and a family more than a pure bred._ ”

“Can I help you?” A young blonde woman asked, walking into the room and smiling at the two of them and the way they riled up the animals.

“Oh, yes please,” Rey smiled, moving closer to her. She clutched both hands behind her back, looking meek and innocent. Ben nearly laughed aloud at the thought. “I was looking for a certain type of dog, or at least a similar kind.”

“Well, I can’t promise we’ll have it, but if you’re looking for a small dog, you’re in the right room.”

“Actually,” Rey’s shoulders slid back, making her seem taller. “I was looking for a large dog. Like a Newfoundland, if you have one.”

Ben’s breath caught in his throat, and he quickly moved forward to place his hand at the small of her back. Rey smiled up at him, her eyes knowing.

The blonde woman looked between the two before nodding. “Actually, we have a mixed boy in the back that we believe is Newfoundland and Husky, with some other breeds as wel.” She began walking through another door, and Rey and Ben dutifully followed like ducklings behind their mother.

“That sounds like an adorable dog.”

“He is,” the woman agreed, smile genuine. “He’s only two years old, but when we found him, he was in a less than ideal situation. Malnourished, cut up, and hadn’t been bathed in probably months. He must have been attacked a while before we picked him up,” the woman said, but Ben knew she had lost Rey as soon as they walked in front of the caged-in room the dogs sat in. He had a dog bed beneath him and several toys lining the floor, but Ben noticed his eye as soon as he looked in. “He lost his right eye, and there’s a large scar where hair will never grow back. Most people see it and decide against-“

“He’s perfect,” Rey whispers, her fingers gripped tightly within the metal of the cage wall. The dog’s ears perked up at her voice, his one eye looking Rey up and down before eventually deciding upon something, his large fluffy legs picking up his heavy body and walking towards her and sniffing her fingers. Rey smiled, pointing her fingers outwards and giggling when he slobbered on her salty skin as he licked the unoffending digits.

“What was that?” The woman asked, not hearing Rey completely.

“We’ll take him,” Ben answered for her, knowing Rey was too enamored to have even heard the other woman. Watching her interact with the big dog made his chest heat up, an image of a husband and his pregnant wife sitting on the couch with a large dog on the floor beside them entered his brain like a light in the darkness, leaving Ben awestruck as he tried to gather his thoughts before he looked like a complete moron.

“Great, if you’ll just follow me, we can get all the papers signed.”

Ben walked forward, kneeling beside Rey and petting the dog as much as he could through the metal. “Could she walk around with him in some sort of play area?” The woman affirmed this, reaching for a leash and opening the cage to hook the dog up, then handed the leash to Rey and opened the back door. Ben stopped her with a gentle hand on her stomach, and his sweet girl lifted her gaze to his. “I’ll handle all the paperwork.”

“Ben-“

“Let me do this for you,” he pleaded. “Go spend time with him.”

Without another word, Rey stood on her toes and kissed his cheek, then led the dog out of the door into the fenced in yard. He stood for a moment, watching her run beside him, laughing and throwing toys, pouting half heartedly when the dog only looked at the thrown object, then looked back to Rey without moving.

“You two are a beautiful couple,” a voice spoke behind him, and after a second, Ben remembered the blonde woman waiting for him.

Ben sighed. “Thank you, but we’re not together.” He shut the door leading outside, his last image that of Rey on her knees rubbing the dogs stomach.

“Oh, I see.” The woman turned, gesturing to another door. “The paperwork?”

“Lead the way,” Ben returned, walking behind her.

 

* * *

 

**_Rey [1:29am]: I think someones in the house_ **

**_Rey [1:30am]: Finn’s gone and there’s someone in the kitchen_ **

Book long forgotten on his bed, Ben was yanking his keys up and slamming his bedroom door while clutching his phone tightly in his hand.

He was staring at his car from across the parking lot, mid sprint, when his phone dinged.

**_Rey [1:33am]: False alarm. But what’s not a false alarm is that the dog ate THE ENTIRE BAG of dog food, and part of a THROW PILLOW_ **

“Oh, thank God,” Ben groaned, leaning over to catch his breath.

His phone was ringing once again, but this time, it continued. He quickly answered the call, bringing the small device to his ear. “Rey?”

“Ben- Wait, were you running or something?”

Ben unceremoniously flopped down on the pavement, sweat tricking down his neck. “Or something.”

“Right,” Rey continued, clearly not bothered by what he could have been doing at 1am. “Sorry for calling this late, but I saw you read my text and I really need advice. He keeps chewing stuff up, and I don’t know why!”

A memory of his father yelling at his mother about getting rid of Archie when he chewed up his car keys flittered through his memory like a fairy, making Ben grin into the phone. “He’s just anxious, Rey. He’ll stop when he gets more comfortable.”

“How do you know that?”

“Do you trust me?”

She hesitated on the other end of the line, making Ben’s heart skip a beat as he waited for her answer.

 

* * *

 

“This dog is a _monster_!” Finn yelled, holding up a shoe. “He ate my shoe!”

Rey shrugged, standing behind the animal in question and rubbing her hands down his back, watching the skin beneath twitch. “He’s anxious. He’ll stop when he gets comfortable.”

“And when will that be?”

Rey laughed. “Probably when you stop yelling at him.”

Finn looked from her down to the dog, then walked forward and knelt before it, running his fingers through it’s long black hair. “Have you named him yet?”

“I have,” she grinned, and Finn saw that she wasn’t paying him any attention when she spoke again. “Kylo Ren.”

“That’s a ridiculous name.” Finn slapped her leg lightly when she only laughed. “I’m serious, Rey. That sounds like a supervillain.”

“It is pretty stupid, isn’t it?” She asked wistfully, her smile softening.

 

* * *

 

**_Ben Solo [11:19am]: You named him Kylo Ren?_ **

Rey sucked in a deep breath, her stomach curling as she sat down her pen and scooted the folder filled with work she needed to finish to the side.

**_Rey [11:20am]: Is that okay?_ **

When her phone vibrated again, Rey opened the message immediately.

**_Ben Solo [11:21am]: I thought you hated that name_ **

Rey sniggered openly and without thought to her coworkers that could hear it through the open door of her office.

**_Rey [11:22am]: For a baby boy, I did. Suits a one eyed dog much better_ **

The reply was short, but knocked the breath right out of her.

**_Ben Solo [11:23am]: Thank you. Really._ **

She didn’t reply, but she did call him later that night to invite him over for one of the group game nights. He showed up with wine and an individual bottle of grape soda (her favorite), choosing to sit between her and Kylo, who rested his head on Ben’s leg after a few minutes of scratching his head.

“Hey there, boy,” Ben whispered, long fingers rubbing beneath his chin and making small hairs fly from the animals body and into the air.

Smiling, Rey stared at the two, eyes tracing every movement they made, until a nudge from Poe brought her back.

* * *

 

Finn proposed to Rose one group brunch around a month later, surrounded by Rey, Ben, Poe, and Rose’s sister. Strangely, Finn had been the one to text Ben to invite him. He was around now just as much as the rest of them.

“Congratulations,” Ben said, clapping Finn on the back as Rey and Rose talked animatedly in the corner of the room Finn had rented out.

“Thanks, man,” Finn smiled, but it only lasted long enough for him to get his next sentence out. “You know, we always thought you and Rey were going to be the first of us to marry.”

The change in Ben was beyond noticeable. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” they both stood in silence for a moment. Long enough for Ben to wrap his eyes around Rey’s figure, drinking her all in. “She thought so too.”

“Well, I well and truly fucked that all up, didn’t I?” He laughed bitterly, grabbing his whiskey up from the table, taking a gulp from the formerly untouched glass.

“You did,” Finn responded, forcing Ben to bark out laughter at the bluntness. Really, what else should he have expected from Rey’s best friend? “But, that doesn’t mean it can never be fixed.”

Another silence.

“I’m not so sure about that anymore.”

“What?” Confusion was evident in Finn’s eyes.

Ben finally looked away from Rey. “She looks happy.” Another gulp of whiskey. “Without me.”

They stopped talking when Rose bounded up, wrapping her arms around Finn and sucking his bottom lip into her mouth, smiling as she leaned back. “Ready to go, _fiancé_?”

“Of course, _fiancée_.” His eyes slid over to Ben. “Not without you, Solo. You’re more in her life now than you have been for two years, aren’t you?” At that, he wrapped his arm around Rose and said goodbye to where Rey and Poe were talking.

Rey placed her hand on Poe’s shoulder, then watched as he left with a wave to Ben, leaving just the two of them.

“You heading out?” Her voice asked, sugary and accented. Ben relished in it, closing his eyes and breathing in deeply before opening them only to see the most beautiful smile he had ever seen on her. It was bitter sweet, she was upset about something, but the melancholy made her features more picturesque than he had ever seen.

God, he loved her.

“Yeah.”

“Me too,” she responded, looking down at where her hands were clasped in front of her. “So-“

“See you later?” Ben asked, grabbing his coat from the back of his chair.

“Um,” Rey looked at a loss for words, as if she had something to say, something that she needed the courage to get out, but then nodded and lost any valor she had summoned. “Yeah, see you.”

 

* * *

 

The next day, she texted Ben about lunch, but received no answer.

She sat the phone down and rolled up her sleeves, kneeling beside Kylo in the bathtub and kissed his snout. “Stupid dog,” she whispered.

He answered with a lick on her chin, leaving a trail of slick clear spit along her flesh. Rey cackled as she turned on the faucet, dousing the animals paw in freezing water.

 

* * *

 

The day after that, Rey texted him again to invite him to lunch, ignoring Rose’s golden rule of not double texting when you get no response. He hadn’t been this distant since they became friends again. Not that he owed her anything, but she at least expected him to somewhat respond, let her know he was busy or couldn’t talk.

Had he gotten as upset as she had about seeing their friends engaged before them?

Had he thought about how it could have been them?

Had he imagined how their own engagement could have been?

**_Rey [1:37pm]: Second time asking you to lunch, second time getting blown off. You can tell me if you’re busy, it’d just be nice to get a response._ **

When she got home from running errands that day and there was still no text, Rey left her phone on the charger and read a book in a different room, helping Finn cook dinner when he and Rose got back.

 

* * *

 

“Did Leia call in?” Rey asked, walking up to Finn’s desk.

He looked back at her as if she had asked him to bomb a daycare. “You haven’t heard?”

Rey shook her head. “Why would I be asking if I had heard something?” Then it hit her. “Wait, is Leia okay?”

She loved her best friend, she really did. But when he scooted slowly back from his desk, standing up and walking over to her without just fucking telling her, Rey could have kicked his ass into the next week.

“Rey,” Finn said softly, and she knew whatever he said next was going to hurt to hear. “Han passed away Saturday.”

Rey’s entire body went numb, her kneels buckling beneath her. Finn rushed forward, pulling her into his arms before she could hit the floor. She wished he had let her fall, maybe stepped on her fucking face while she was down there.

“Oh my _god_.”

Had she really been thinking Ben had been ignoring her because he was sad they didn’t get _engaged_?

“I have to go,” she told Finn, pushing away and nearly sprinting back to her office to get her purse.

 

* * *

 

Was he breathing? He wasn’t quite sure. Should he be forcing himself to breathe? Probably not.

Ben exhaled all of the breath in his lungs, closing his eyes from the darkness engulfing his bedroom. Seconds passed, and Ben felt his chest starting to constrict within. He wanted to keep his lips and nasal passage closed, deny the oxygen pressing on him, begging for entrance.

Selfishly, he opened his mouth when white dots blurred the red of the back of his eyelids, inhaling as much oxygen as he could. He didn’t deserve it, but he took it anyway.

He’d try it again in a few minutes.

It wasn’t that he wanted to die, wasn’t naïve enough to think that holding his breath could kill him. It’d just knock him out, and that sounded nice to him. If this was a movie, he’d have sleeping pills he could take, he would drink away the pain until he was left stumbling around his own apartment and forgot his father’s name.

Maybe he’d have contemplated suicide, a rope on a post in his apartment, or a conveniently placed gun with a single bullet.

But Ben was selfish. He was greedy and frightened, unable to imagine himself just… not existing.

That set off an entirely new set of thoughts.

His father no longer existed.

If he was a religious man, he could pretend that Han was somewhere better, somewhere where he could be without the pains in his arms and legs, happy and working on as many cars as the man could handle, not a care in the world about whether or not the cops would show up at his door step.

But he wasn’t somewhere better, and Ben knew that Han was just a rotting carcass in a funeral home, waiting to be buried tomorrow with no thoughts and no memories left.

He’d never see his father’s disappointed face when Ben discussed his company, he would never hear him chastise him or tease his mother relentlessly. He would never watch his father play with his future children, see him in a tux at his wedding, hear him congratulate Ben on buying a home with Rey.

Ben, thirty one years old, suddenly felt like he was nothing but a small, scared child.

His father was _dead_ , and he was never going to speak to him again.

He barely heard the knocking on the door and then contemplated even getting the door, but his mother was asleep in his spare bedroom and the last thing she needed was to deal with other people.

He neglected a shirt, slipping on a pair of sweatpants that he had worn since Saturday night. What day was it, anyway? Was it still Monday? It felt like it had been a week since he had called in to work.

Ben opened the door to find Rey on the other side, eyes red and mouth turned downward.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, curling her arms around him and gifting him with the only pleasant feeling he had received in days.

Ben barely remembered shutting the door. Wasn’t even sure if it was him or her. Didn’t recall sitting down on the couch. Didn’t remember Rey climbing in beside him, pulling his head down onto her lap as she brushed the errant tears that sought refuge on her pants legs. He had a vague memory of Rey resting her forehead against his at an odd angle, his battered and used eyes watching her clinch hers shut while her own tears poured through like a broken dam.

Her small, gentle fingers were sifting through his hair, and Ben lifted his hand, pressing it lightly on the back of her neck, holding her in place. “I don’t know what to do.”

“I know, Ben.” She kissed his temple. “I know.”

“I can feel pieces inside of me breaking off, Rey.” He tightened his grip on her, and his ever-dutiful Rey just pulled herself against him tighter, crushing his head against her stomach. “He’s gone and he’s never coming back.”

Rey bit through her tears, nodding, unable to form her own words when she needed them most.

“I killed him,” Ben whispered into the air around them.

Rey lifted her head from his, “what?”

He released his hold on her neck, expecting her to escape from him when she heard. “I killed him.”

Her hold only tightened. She didn’t believe him. She thought too much of him, really. “Don’t say that.”

“I did,” Ben tried to pull himself away from her, but Rey tugged him right back down, both arms locking around his head and turning him to look up at her. “I-I  asked him to come over Friday night. It was late and I shouldn’t have. I knew he couldn’t see well at night. My mother attempted to talk me out of it, said they could both visit in the morning.” His shoulders began to shake, and Rey closed her eyes, unable to help him. “I wanted him to come over then. I was being stupid and childish, a grown man seeking his father’s advice and comfort.”

“That doesn’t make it your fault, Ben.”

“It does.” He disagreed, and Rey could see the self-hatred forming in his eyes as he continued. “I agreed with her and told him to just come in the morning, but he was already walking out of the door. My mother tried to stop him, but he told her that I was his son, and if I needed him, he wasn’t going to disappoint me.”

_‘Not again’_ , they both knew lingered unsaid.

He laid limp in her lap, just staring at the ceiling above him as the words spilled from his mouth like putrid vomit. “He crashed into an eighteen wheeler two streets over.” Rey gasped, Ben didn’t move. “They took him to a hospital but he died Saturday morning anyway.”

“Ben-“

“He’s dead, and it’s my fault.”

“Shut your mouth, Benjamin Chewbacca Solo.”

Both eyes shot to where Leia stood behind them, somehow taller than everything in the room even at her 5’3” height. Rey gently lifted Ben from her lap, rubbing her thumb along his cheeks to erase the tear tracks before moving over to his mother. The two women shared a profound embrace, but Leia didn’t shake or fall to her knees when the pain overwhelmed her and drew tears from her sore eyes.

“You didn’t kill him and you better stop saying you did. He’d be pissed off at you for even insinuating it.” Leia walked towards him, slapping his leg.

But he had killed him.

Why could they understand that he was the reason for this?

He may not have done it with his own hands, but Ben Solo was his own fathers murderer, committer of patricide. His mother was never going to be able to kiss her husband again, and it was all because her son was a selfish asshole.

““That man knew the risk he was taking. Do you really want to remember him as your victim instead of your father who loved you, who wanted to help you when you needed him?” Leia shook her head, hovering above him. “Don’t soil his memory like that. Please, Benjamin.”

Her words shot through his body like the long awaited bullet he had been considering, and instead of continuing his sob story, he slowly gathered himself enough to sit up on the couch, making room for his mother to sit down.

“Come over, Rey. You’re here now, so you should be a part of the conversation.”

Rey looked at the couch, seeing there was very obviously no room for her, before two strong hands grabbed her arms and drug her down into Ben’s lap. She struggled momentarily before she felt his nose bury in her neck, a sniffle escaping his lips, ripping all fight from her very willing grasp. She instead swathed him in her arms almost maternally, resting her chin on his head, gazing at Leia who seemed to be in her own head at the image.

“The funeral is tomorrow at 2. Han would have wanted you to go.”

Rey gripped Ben’s shoulder tightly. “Are… Are you sure? I mean, I won’t be offended.”

“Please,” Leia laughed, but Rey noticed it didn’t make it to her eyes. Her eyes were somewhere else, likely thirty years ago. “That man adored you. Nearly beat this one when he ruined it.” Ben’s arms constricted around her. “Plus, we need you there. It would really be a comfort.” Leia regarded Rey before sliding over to Ben, and Rey understood what the wise woman meant. Leia was strong. The strongest woman Rey had ever met, and Rey knew that even if she felt the heartbreak more than anyone else in the world, she would be worrying more about her son than herself in that moment.

Rey could only wish that she would one day be even half the mother Leia was.

“I’ll be there.”

Leia beamed, lifting her hand and resting it reassuringly on Rey’s forearm. “Would you like to stay the night, sweetheart?”

Rey wasn’t planning on saying no anyway, but knew she didn’t have an option in the matter when Ben’s hand drifted up her arm, squeezing gently on the slightly meatier skin he found there.

“Of course.”

“Good, I’ll make us some tea.”

 

* * *

 

When Rey awoke, it was to breathing on her neck. Temperate puffs that sent chill after chill down her back while she laid there. For a second, she thought it was Kylo behind her. The gentle giant regularly found himself behind her in her bed, head pressed against her own and drooling on her pillow.

However, Rey remembered slowly what had happened and who was actually behind her, and the pain swam through her heart once more.

“Good morning,” Ben’s deep rumble of a voice spoke, and Rey grasped that she hadn’t heard his voice after sleep in years.

She twisted, resting on her side and looking up at him through her lashes. “Morning.”

“Thank you for being here.” Rey couldn’t comprehend how he would think she wouldn’t come immediately whenever she found out.

“You needed me. There was no other choice.”

His lips found hers before she could understand what was happening, closed mouth slanting across hers as his fingers drifted through her tangled hair. Despite the romantic undertone that comes with a kiss, to Rey, it wasn’t more meaningful than a hug in the moment. Ben was seeking affection in any way he could get it, and with Rey, this was his obvious option.

Rey gasped when his wet muscle glided along the seam of her lips, and instead of Ben taking advantage and slipping in, he hauled himself away, comically pressed flat into the couch behind him in an attempt to create distance, watching the red climb her tan cheeks.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that,” he mumbled, sitting up on the couch and scuttling over her like an enormous, stupid crab to get off.

Rey grabbed his arm, effectively stopping him. “It’s okay. I know it’s a comfort thing.” She looked down shyly. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

Ben pulled his arm away. “We are.”

Despite what he said, Rey wasn’t so sure they were.

 

* * *

 

That wasn’t his father.

He didn’t know who that was, but he knew it wasn’t his god damn father.

“Who the fuck is that?”

“Ben-“ Leia tried, but he cut her off.

“No, who the fuck is that?!” Ben spun around, brushing passed his crying mother and rushing through the door where Rey was waiting, having heard it all. “That’s not him. That’s not my father.”

“Ben, stop.” Rey spoke quietly, walking behind him as he continued through the doors outside. “Please.”

She was speaking to him like a _child._ He wasn’t a fucking child.

“Why did they make him look like that? He _never_ looked like that!” Ben moved with speed Rey didn’t know he possessed, swinging his fist into a tree in the lawn of the funeral home. Blood began to pour down his fist, and he nearly swung on the owner of the hands that grabbed him around the waist, but stopped himself when he looked down and saw a familiar scar on the skin between thumb and index finger.

“I talked to the funeral directors earlier. It was the best they could do to cover up the-the… Contusions.”

“That’s not my father,” he whispered.

“It is,” Rey responded, crying with him when he doubled over in front of her.

 

* * *

 

“When I was a child, my teacher told my class that everyone was going to die one day. I remember crying on the drive back to my house, and when I got there, my father opened the door and clapped me on the back and said, “Welcome home, kid.”” Ben chuckled, shaking his head. “I won’t ever forget the look on his face when I started crying and told him what my teacher had said. My father was a lot of things, soothing was not one of them.”

Leia nodded her head, “Very true.”

Ben smiled, “His response had been “Let’s keep a little optimism here. You think there’s something out there strong enough to do your dad in? Nah, no way. I’ll always be here to annoy you”,” Ben stared at the group of people before him. Men in leather that he had known all his life from his father’s crime days, politicians that were friends of the family, people that he went to high school with, coworkers, his mother.

And Rey.

Sitting before him, smiling delicately like a mother watching their child in their first school play, encouraging them with tender eyes and curved lips.

“Obviously, that wasn’t true. But as a six year old, watching their dad like he brought the moon over from across the Mexican border in a beat up 1978 Chevy pick up truck,” the men in leather chuckled, “I believed him.” Leia closed her eyes, breathing in deeply. Preparing herself, he realized. “When he broke his wrist when I was twelve, I knew he’d get better. When he was diagnosed with arthritis right after I graduated high school, I knew he’d live.” Ben gripped the paper tightly, his own words staring back at him, but his eyes were too blurry to read them. “The most I ever feared for him was when he made my mother so mad, I could see steam pouring from her ears. Those were the only times I wasn’t sure.” The group laughed, Rey included. His mother stayed silent, but smiled.

“I didn’t ever plan for him to be gone. I never prepared for it, never thought of what I’d do when it happened.” Ben swiped a thumb beneath his eyes when a tear finally broke loose. “I took him for granted and assumed I’d always have to put up with his bragging about how he made the trip from Kessel to Alderaan in twelve miles by cutting through fields on his harley, or the competitive glint in his eye any time I decided to drink whiskey when he already had a glass in hand.” Rey’s laugh was the loudest that time, and he knew she remembered when his father had out right challenged him to see who could drink theirs the fastest one of the times they had visited. Han had won, but Ben had felt like the true victor when he didn’t feel like shit the next day.

“When I got old enough to realize that one day my father would indeed die, I figured it would be something befitting of the man, like him defending someone from a mugger or saving a family from a burning building. Because no matter what my father said, he _was_ a hero.” Ben felt his lower lip trembling, hoping it wouldn’t impede his speech before he could finish.

“Yet, nothing seems a more fitting way to go than him on his way to come help me in my time of need. He thought he owed me something, and when I was younger, I thought he did too. But now I know that all I ever wanted,” his knees shook, wobbling like a baby deer, and he saw Rey shift in her chair. “Was for my father to _love_ me,” he stopped, catching his breath. “And for him to be _proud_ of me.” His throat constricted, and Ben tried to clear it. “I’m not quite there yet, but when I am, it’s going to be Han Solo I think about it.” He looked over at the casket, seeing his father who looked nothing like himself laying there, almost as if he was just sleeping. “And when I die, because I know one day I will,” he looked at his mother, and she opened her eyes just in time to look right back. “I know I’ll feel him slap me on the back like I’m six again and say, “Welcome home, kid.””

Clapping began when Ben stepped away from the podium, and Ben wished he could plug his ears to ignore it. He didn’t want to be praised for talking about his dead father. He just wanted his dead father to not be _dead_.

“That was beautiful,” Rey whispered when Ben sat back in his seat between his mother and her on the pew. “Your dad would be happy to know even more people believe his exaggeration about the Kessel run.”

He sucked in then, deeply, before bellowing out a throaty laugh laced with tears and it caught the attention of the whole room, including the preacher who was on his way to turn on the music. He looked down at Rey, who was looking at his hand, unsure whether to grab it. Ben made the decision for her, linking her fingers between his own.

The music drifted through his ears, and suddenly, Ben wasn’t in control of himself anymore.

 

****_When I die and they lay me to rest_  
Gonna go to the place that's the best  
When I lay me down to die  
Goin' up to the spirit in the sky

 

Ben felt something tap against the back of his hand, and when he looked up, his chest being wracked by his tears, Leia was holding something out for him.

Dice.

Ben took the dice, watching the surface reflect the fluorescent lighting of the room, letting the song filter through his ears as he spun the cubes around each finger. Standing on his two unstable feet, he moved to the casket, looking down at his father.

“See you later, dad,” he whispered, voice cracking. His long fingers hovered over false skin before ultimately moving away.

Turning back to the love of his life and his grieving mother, Ben’s hands were empty.

Later, when they lowered his father’s casket into the ground, signally the end of an era, Ben imagined his father holding onto the dice in death just as tightly as he held them in life.

 

****_Oh set me up with the spirit in the sky_  
That's where I'm gonna go when I die  
When I die and they lay me to rest  
I'm gonna go to the place that's the best  
Go to the place that's the best

 

 

* * *

 

**_Ben Solo [2:41pm]: I’m fine. You don’t need to come._ **

**_Ben Solo [2:41pm]: I’m fine._ **

**_Rey [2:43pm]: Shut up and have Netflix ready when I get there in twelve minutes._ **

**_Ben Solo [2:44pm]: Stubborn._ **

**_Rey [2:45pm]: Stupid._ **

**_Ben Solo [2:45pm]: Drive safe._ **

* * *

****

“This is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.”

An undignified gasp broke free, Rey’s head lifting from the other end of the couch. “Do _not_ talk about it like that! Dalton may seem tough, but inside, he’s very fragile.”

Ben lifted himself up from his elbows, looking at where Rey lay, head between his calves on his throw pillow. “The town is lawless, Rey. It doesn’t even make sense.”

She shifted, her legs rubbing against his side. He quickly grasped them before she could realize the effect it was having on him.

He refused to remind her that he was ticklish.

“But it’s bad ass!” She exclaimed, “come on, “You’re too stupid to have a good time,” and the “be nice” speech are both iconic pieces of cinema!” Sitting up, Ben could see she deeply cared about the movie, despite having offered it as a suggestion by saying, “ _I know a shitty action movie we could watch_.”

“It just seems dumb to me,” Ben responded, watching as another fight broke out on the screen. “And why are they making it seem like bouncers are celebrities?” He groaned. “I can hardly even pay attention, the plots so dull.”

“You’re no fun,” she concluded, turning away from him. “Idiot.”

Ben nudged her with his leg, hitting her on the shoulder. “Hey, what happened to rule #3?”

A grin tugged at her lips. “You _were_ paying attention.”

Ignoring that, he persisted. “You’re not being very nice.”

Like a panther prepared to strike, Rey sprung forward, landing right on his chest so that his hands that were holding her legs were now pressed to his chest. “You forgot the most important part,” she whispered, and if she hadn’t already gotten his attention by then, she did now. “Be nice,” she waved her hands above him, “until it’s time to _not be nice_.”

Ben wasn’t ready for her fingers to land at his side, digging in and moving quickly. He jumped, nearly bucking her off of him as the laughter took over. “No!” He cried out, tears rimming his eyes as he was barely able to control himself from knocking her off of him. “Rey!”

 

* * *

 

Friends.

They were friends.

Friends loved each other, he knew.

But friends didn’t love each other quite like Ben loved Rey.

He knew that as well, knew that she would likely never again love him the way he loved her.

Then why was it so hard for him to say yes to the cute barista who asked him to dinner that weekend? Why was he constantly seeing Rey looking so betrayed in the other woman’s eyes, despite them having no obligations to one another? She had been the one to say they could see other people, that they were nothing more than friends.

It had been almost five months since they slept with each other, nearly four months since he kissed her on his couch while his mother slept in the next room. Two months since she went out one on one with Poe to the movies, despite telling him it wasn’t a date.

_“Not that it’d be any of your business if it was,”_ she told him over lunch the next day.

The woman had given him her number on his cup, scrawled in pretty near perfect loopy letters with a heart at the end, a far cry from Rey’s chicken scratch. Ben had almost thrown it away until he remembered that he had every right to see if he could be happy with someone else.

He loved Rey, more than anything in the world.

But Rey didn’t seem to feel the same way.

Rey was content that he was her friend, and nothing more.

Ben picked up his phone, typing in the number on the four-day old coffee cup.

**_Ben [4:25pm]: Is this Miranda?_ **

 

* * *

 

“Of course, I’ll be there in a few hours,” Rey said into her phone before hanging up and typing in Ben’s number. She decided to call since it would be quicker and she needed to leave as soon as possible, but when he didn’t answer, Rey quickly grabbed food and a toy for Kylo and walked the dog out of her apartment on a leash down to the parking garage.

She made it to Ben’s flat quickly, typing in his code and heading straight to the elevator, ignoring the looks her enormous dog received.

Or maybe they were staring at her. She _was_ wearing a slightly stained white tank top and joggers with her bigfoot slippers that made it look like she had large, hairy feet, and this _was_ an extremely expensive apartment complex.

Oh well.

Rey didn’t wait to knock on Ben’s door, her fist slamming down hard on the heavy wood. They had grown rather close in the last few months, Rey spending most of her free time with Ben whether it be in his apartment or with their friends. It wasn’t unusual for her to show up in the afternoon and beat down his door.

Then she stopped.

She heard muffled voices from within, maybe he had company and that’s why he wasn’t answering? Rey felt a little bad for asking him to watch Kylo if he had friends over, but she was a bit desperate. Finn and Rose needed her to drive to Theed, which was a four and half hour drive, because Finn accidentally left their bag that had their thousand dollar tickets to see Rose’s favorite musical in the front row that he had bought for her birthday. She’d have asked Poe, but she trusted Ben with Kylo more. And as much as she hated to admit it, Ben had been the first person she thought of in her time of need.

The door swung open, then instantly closed almost entirely and Ben stood, staring partially out at her, eyes wide like he’d seen a ghost. “Rey?”

Rey shook Kylo’s leash, choosing to ignore her ex’s strange behavior. Maybe he didn’t want her to meet his friends. It actually hurt a bit, but she reminded herself that they weren’t together. Not yet, at least.

“Finn and Rose need me to drive up to Theed to drop something off for them,” she gestured to Kylo. “I’ll probably stay in a motel on the way back so I need someone to take care of Kylo while I’m gone. Is that okay?”

Ben shifted behind the door, and Rey thought she saw a flash of skin. Was he shirtless?

“Actually-“ he began, but a soft voice from behind him spoke up.

“Ben, I don’t know how to work your shower,” the voice giggled, and Ben had no choice when Kylo moved forward and pushed the door open with his nose, revealing a pretty girl a little bit older than Rey standing behind him, the top three buttons of her blouse undone. “Oh, hello!”

Rey thought she had done pretty well at keeping her mouth from hitting the floor. “Hello,” she responded, looking back to Ben. “I’ll ask Poe.” She spun on her feet, embarrassed beyond belief when Kylo stayed sniffing Ben’s apartment when all she wanted to do was _leave_. With an unhappy growl, the gigantic animal finally followed behind her.

“Rey, wait,” Ben called, turning to say something to the girl before walking down the hall to stop her. “Rey.”

“How long have you been seeing each other?” She asked looking over her shoulder at him, knowing he had every right to tell her off for it.

Ben promptly looked to the floor, seeming extremely interested in the pattern on the carpet, shuffling his feet. “This was our third date.”

Third date. So, it wasn’t just a girl he picked up.

She had waited too long.

“I’m happy for you,” her voice sounded anything but happy, yet Rey still managed to force a smile on her face. “Really.”

Ben stopped fidgeting, catching her clearly unhappy gaze. “You are?”

“Of course, Ben,” Rey bit her lip, ignoring the way Ben’s eyes honed in on the action. “All I ever wanted was for you to be happy.”

‘ _Even if that happiness wasn’t with me.’_

Ben nodded, somewhere inside knowing that she was lying, but too hurt by how easily she gave up on them to realize. “I can still watch Kylo, if you’d like.”

Rey immediately pulled the dog closer to her. It was beyond selfish, beyond greedy, but that girl had already taken Ben away from her, Rey couldn’t even begin to imagine what she’d do if she took Kylo too. “No, that’s okay.” Rey leaned down, petting the large dog behind his ears. “I’m a bit of a jealous dog mom, you know?” She laughed awkwardly, hoping he didn’t notice. “Besides, Kylo’s too innocent to see what will be going on in that apartment. I’ll just ask Poe.”

‘ _Please don’t let me walk away like this,’_ Rey pleaded mentally, hoping he could read her mind.

“Alright. Tell him I said hello,” Ben smiled easily back at her, bending over to scratch beneath Kylo’s chin. “You be good for your mom, alright?”

A sob left her mouth involuntarily, and Ben was standing less than a second later. “Rey?”

“I’m so sorry,” she bawled harder. “You just made me think of _him._ ”

It took him a second to think about it, but an image of a small blue box shook him to his core. “Shit, I’m an idiot.”

“No, no,” she shook her head. “I’m the dumb one. I’m just being emotional, don’t worry about it.” She wiped her eyes, then smiled up at him. It was breathtaking and heartbreaking all at once. “I’m going to get going, you go back in to…”

“Miranda,” Ben supplied.

“Miranda,” Rey repeated, tasting the name. “Pretty name.”

Ben nodded absently, wanting nothing more than wrap the small woman up in his arms and kiss the tears from her eyes. But he wanted to do what she wanted, and what she wanted was for him to be with another woman. “Be safe on your drive.”

Rey nodded, turning the other way with a small wave, her shoulders shaking and her chest moving abnormally fast.

 

* * *

 

**Ben [7:42pm]: Are you sure you’re okay? Don’t drive if you’re crying.**

Ben sat on his couch staring down at his phone.

“Should… Should I go?”

He flinched at the sudden noise, having forgotten that Miranda was there. “What?”

She chuckled buttoning up her shirt, but it was a foreign and unwelcome sound in his ears. “I’ll take that as a yes.” Miranda plopped down on the couch beside him. “Are we still going out tomorrow night?”

Ben looked up from his phone again, staring at the small, not brunette, and not annoyingly stubborn girl beside him. “Well-“

His phone vibrated in his hand, and Ben jerked in his seat, tearing his eyes off of the other woman and quickly opening the message.

**_Little Bird [7:44pm]: I’m fine stupid._ **

**_Little Bird [7:44pm]: I’m fine._ **

Ben shot off like a light, barely even waiting to throw, “I have to go. Lock the door on your way out, please,” to the woman behind him before he was tearing off down the hallway, nearly ripping the stupid and completely uninteresting carpet off of the floor with his speed.

 

* * *

 

Her chest was expanding, but no air was coming in.

Kylo was barking beside her, but Rey felt like she was hearing it through a box.

Her stomach hurt.

She was going to die.

Her ribs were going to give from the pressure in her chest, or her stomach was going to burst, but she knew she was going to die.

She felt a wet nose rubbing against her hand covering her abdomen, but Rey couldn’t think enough to acknowledge the desperate dog.

Calm down, Rey.

You’re going to die, Rey.

Just like your so-

“Rey, open the door!” Ben screamed from beside her, and Rey sucked in a deep breath before eyeing him through the window where he stood, shirtless and sweaty. Kylo began barking firmer.

She trembled where she sat, trying to look like she wasn’t having a panic attack. “Go away! I’m fine!”

“You’re not fine!” Ben screamed back, pounding harder on the window. “Open the fucking door!”

“Stop yelling at me!” She yelled back, slapping her own hand against the glass. Kylo leaned over the console, releasing loud cries that gave Rey a head ache. “I told you I’m fucking fine, you idiot! Now leave me alone!” She laid her head down between her legs, breathing deeply.

“Open this door, or I’ll bust the glass!” He bellowed out, eyes alight with fury. She looked just in time to see him lift his bare elbow.

“Stop, you fucking moron!” Her voice screeched, and she quickly threw open the door, hoping it would hit him.

Unfortunately, it didn’t.

His hands were seizing her, yanking her from the car, Rey still couldn’t breathe. “Put me down,” she rasped between shallow breaths.

“You should have told me you were having a panic attack,” Ben laid his forehead against hers, but Rey shook her body violently, trying to escape from his grasp.

“How am I ever going to move on when you won’t fucking let me?! Why do you keep coming back and ruining everything?!”

Ben heard her scream, felt her shake in his hands, but only held her tighter against his chest. He wasn’t there for her before. He had left her when she needed him.

He wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.

“I’m not leaving you again,” Ben puffed into her neck, completely unaltered by the fact that they were shouting in his parking lot at night, and he was half undressed.

Rey began weeping, dark eyelashes clumping together unattractively, the hiccups making her breathing problem even worse. “Stop saying that! You don’t mean it, you never meant it!” Too far gone within her break down to care, Rey released all of the feelings she had held in. “You lied to me, you stupid asshole! I fucking trusted you, and you lied!”

His girl was light and brittle within his arms, almost as if he was holding a delicate bird. “I know. It was all my fault. I ruined it all, and I hurt you,” he lifted his hand that was bound behind her back, moving to sit her against the hood and placing his palm on the side of her tear soaked neck, forehead to forehead. “ _Breathe_ , Little Bird. _Breathe_.”

She almost didn’t want to just to spite him, wanted to let herself die like she knew she could just so he would have to deal with it, but his voice was so _smooth_ and convincing that she found herself obeying without even meaning to. Her thrumming heart beat began to ease, but her mind was still racing. “I hate you.”

Ben just hummed, pulling her forward so her head rested on his shoulder, taking solace in her breathing growing continuously more even. Her legs relaxed against the metal of her car, and Ben stayed placed amongst her legs, just inhaling her in.

“Go back to her, Ben,” Rey finally croaked out. “I don’t know how you knew I was having an attack, but I never meant for you to come find me.”

Annoyed, Ben leaned back, his face inches from hers and her eyes caught like a fish on a line. “I will _always_ come and find you, Rey. Do you hear me? I fucked up for way too long, and I understand if you never forgive me,” he cradled her face gently with both hands, making sure she was listening to what he was saying. “But if you can find it within you to trust even a single thing I say, let it be this. If you _ever_ need me, I will come.” She looked away, but Ben lightly tugged on her chin and brought her back. “I don’t care if you’re on a different continent or a different god damn galaxy. You call, I come. That’s just how it is.”

Trust?

He wanted her to trust him?

But…

Well…

Suddenly, she was dumbfounded by the knowledge that she did trust him. Wasn’t sure when it started, wasn’t sure when she had decided to put her faith back in him, but knew that he was telling her the truth.

Rey was aware that she was closing the distance between them after that, no longer held back by the frayed strings surrounding her heart. “What about Miranda? I was serious when I said I want you to be happy.”

A small laugh flittered from him. “I know next to nothing about her, but I do know that she was never going to make me happy.” He tilted her head back, pressing in closer until Rey whimpered. “But you…  I _know you_ , Little Bird. I know you pretend to be fine when you’re having panic attacks, and that your favorite color is red,” he smiled. “But not red like blood or sunsets. You love the red of fresh clay because it reminds you of where you came from, and everything you’ve overcome.”

 “I know that your favorite food is breakfast food - preferably pancakes with eggs and bacon. I know you love your dog like a child, and that you hate sleeping alone. I know that you give trust easily, but you guard your heart with more persistence than one woman should possess.”

Ben brushed his lips against hers, speaking against her mouth when he murmured, “I know you call me ‘stupid’ and ‘idiot’ when you really want to say ‘I love you’,” his let his nose bump hers, his lips curving into a smile. “And I know I will never love anyone more than I love you right now, and that I’ve never been less deserving of a woman in my life.”

She snorted, closing her eyes and wrapping her arms around his neck. “What’s your point, idiot?”

“My point, Rey,” Ben lifted his hands from her, unwrapping himself from her hold and knelt down before her, and Rey felt like she was going to throw up. “Is that I will kiss the ground you walk on for the rest of my life and trail behind you like a god damn schoolboy whether you decide to take a chance on me again or not. My feelings aren’t dependent on your decision, I will never stop being in love with you. You’re the love of my life and I hurt you more than I can ever understand. I want to spend the rest of my life making up for it,” Ben lifted her sweatpants covered leg, sliding her disgusting slippers off of her feet and kissing the top of her foot.

“What about Miranda?” She repeated, her back arching from the chills crawling up her spine like thousands of icy fingers.

Ben kissed the bone of her ankle lightly, a feather of a touch that made Rey whine. “It was dumb, but you kept telling me we were just friends.” His hot breath on her skin did wonders. “I wanted to know if I could feel even a fraction of what I felt for you with someone else so I would know if I had hope if you decided to never take me back.”

His honesty was endearing to her. “The verdict?”

His bright eyes looked up at her, taking a long hike up her body before he met her gaze. “I’d die a lonely death with 35 cats and no one to love.”

“You don’t love her?” She asked.

The question had an obvious answer. Ben had only been on three dates with the girl, so of course he wasn’t in love with her. But he knew from the slight childish tone Rey had that this wasn’t the time for him to call her out on something like that. She needed assurance, and Ben was willing to dedicate his existence to giving that to her.

“Not at all.”

“Did you… Did you have sex with her?” Rey whispered, watching him below her.

Ben shook his head, kissing her knee through her pants. “Tonight was the first time she came back to my apartment.” His expression turned pained, his eyes beseeching. “ I won’t lie to you, we started to, but I realized I couldn’t and asked her if she wanted to take a shower so that I could have time to figure out how to ask her to leave politely.”

Rey looked away. He hadn’t gone through with it, but he almost had. She knew she had basically given him the green light, but to hear it from his mouth… It was painful. “I’m sorry, it wasn’t my place to ask you that.”

“Rey,” she turned to him, and Ben shifted on his knee, reaching out to pull her closer to the edge of the car. “You can ask me anything you want. I’m yours, okay? Completely.”

Fuck.

Shit, fuck, damn.

How did one respond when the person they cared for deeply just… Gave themselves over to them, irrevocably?

Unable to retort, she merely nodded. A pale response in comparison to what he probably wanted.

But, Benny Boy was a champ, through and through, taking her nonresponse with the grace of the British Queen. “If you decide that it really is over between us,” he hoped to God it wasn’t. “I’ll still be your friend, alright? Don’t think that it’s an ultimatum. I can’t live without you in my life. Not again.”

“I love you.”

They both stopped, staring at one another.

Ben opened his mouth, his eyebrows quirked. “As a friend?”

Rey nodded. “As a friend.”

Now _he_ was the one who felt like he was going to die. “Okay-“

“As a friend, as a lover, as family, as a future partner in life,” she sighed out gently, reaching down to hold his face, then released that bright smile that Ben knew was meant for him. “I love you. And I forgive you. But don’t think for a minute that I won’t kick your ass so hard your tongue gets replaced by my foot if you ever pull something that stupid and avoidable again.”

“Does this mean…?”

Rey pulled at his arms, “please kiss me.”

Ben bobbed dumbly, getting to his feet and grasping her jaw, dropping his full lips to hers. Instead of deepening it like she wanted him to, he pulled back and began kissing all over her nose and cheeks. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too, idiot,” Rey breathed out when his lips found her throat, covering them in soft, sweet touches. “Ben,” she moaned- music to his ears- wrapping her arms around his shoulders. “Please touch me.”

Ben almost did. He wanted to, don’t get him wrong. He _really_ fucking wanted to. But this was a new and improved Ben Solo. One who cared about Rey’s friends more than getting laid in the backseat of a car. “As much as I want to, Little Bird, I think you have somewhere you need to be.”

Rey shot off the car like he had lit a firework in her ass. “Oh shit! I still need someone to watch Kylo!”

“I can watch him,” Ben offered, confused by her not immediately asking him to do so.

“Actually,” Rey smiled, running a hand up his arm. “I was hoping you could come with me?” She looked apprehensive, as if she actually thought he would say no.

“Absolutely,” Ben grinned, reaching down to scoop her back up, then leaned over to let her scoop up Kylo’s chain, pulling him from where he was obediently laying in the seat and waiting for them to finish what they were doing. “I just need to run upstairs and let Miranda know, and lock up.” He laughed. “Maybe throw a shirt on.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to go up there alone? You guys are kind of dating and it’s probably rude for me to go with you.”

A slap on her ass made her bounce in his hold, yelping lightly and tightening her grip on his neck. “Of course you’re coming up there with me. I don’t ever want to give you a reason for you to doubt me again.”

“Fine, fine!” She shook her ass, trying to scoot down. “At least let me walk by myself then!”

Ben grunted but complied, sitting her down on her own two feet, but compromised by wrapping a thick arm around her waist. “I love you,” he breathed into her hair, and Rey kissed his arm in response.

* * *

 

Miranda was still there when they walked in. She had been sitting on the couch, probably thinking Ben would be back soon, when he opened the door and stepped into the room with his body practically wrapped around Rey and her dog walking in behind them. Rey tried to pull away from him to be nice, and also because she wasn’t sure if Ben really had been serious with the girl, but he refused to let her leave him. Despite her embarrassment, she was comforted by the gesture.

“So, this is Rey?” Miranda asked, making Rey do a double take.

“It is,” Ben responded, his fingers tightening around her waist.

Miranda nodded, picking her coat up from the couch. “I’m going to go ahead and go then.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Rey stopped the two of them, drawing attention to herself. “Ben told you about me?” She asked, completely confused and out of her element.

“Yeah,” Miranda spoke like it was obvious. “He told me he was still in love with someone and probably wouldn’t be able to have something serious with me, which worked perfectly because I was also in love with someone who didn’t return it,” Miranda smiled, eyes narrowing on where Ben had once again walked closer to Rey, his finger trailing the back of her arm. “Looks like I’m the only one in an unrequited situation, though.” She walked passed them, opening the door. “You look good together. Don’t fuck it up this time, alright, Ben?” Then she was gone.

Rey looked back at the man beside her, but his eyes were half lidded and he was smiling drunkenly. “You’re the worst,” Rey told him, not at all meaning it.

“I know,” Ben replied, leaning forward and pressing his mouth to hers. Rey moaned, opening her lips and letting him slip his tongue between to brush against her own. His hand slid around her, falling on her ass and squeezing hard, bringing her to her toes.

“Ben,” Rey whimpered against his mouth, and Ben sunk further into her, pushing her back until she fell onto the couch, where he quickly knelt between her legs and rubbed his thigh right where she needed him. “Ben,” she tried again.

“Yes, Little Bird?” his voice was like velvet, drawing her in and suffocating her pleasantly.

“We have to go,” she moaned out when he replaced his knee with the palm of his hand, rubbing her through the cloth at the apex of her thighs.

Ben nodded, kissing her deeply again in spite of his words. “Okay.” He lifted his hand, and Rey almost sat up, when she felt his fingers slip beneath the waistband of her pants.

“Oh,” her voice came out light and airy when she felt those same fingers dip beneath her panties, lightly caressing the curls there. “This isn’t us leaving.”

“No,” he kissed her again, then moved down to place gentle nips along her throat. “It isn’t.”

At the first touch of his index finger to her folds, Rey jerked forward, forcing his finger to slide between and into her wet heat, tracing her entrance. “Please,” she cried out.

Ben was once again positive that he would never be met with a more beautiful sight than Rey writhing beneath him. “Anything you want, baby. I’ll give you anything you want,” he responded, licking her collar bones.

“Two fingers, Ben,” she told him sharply when his palm brushed against her clit. “Oh _fuck_.”

Ben did just as she asked, unable to keep from kissing her plump mouth when she began fucking herself on his fingers after he had barely put them inside her. She was frustrated and hadn’t gotten off in a while, he knew the signs. He would do anything she wanted him to, even if he got nothing in return. This was about her. For her.

Jesus fucking Christ, he _loved her_.

Just after that thought, he felt her walls clench down on his finger. “You close, Little Bird?” Rey nodded, opening her eyes and revealing glossed over eyes filled to the brim with lust. Ben quickly shoved a third finger into her, fucking her fast while his thumb rubbed against her bundle of nerves.

“Oh! Oh, oh, oh! Ben, please! I’m going to- _Holy fuck!”_ She shrieked, her orgasm taking over and his fingers becoming drenched within her underwear.

After she was done and her body was still receiving small aftershocks, Ben removed his fingers gently, immediately sucking them between his lips and gazing at her openly as he cleaned them off. “As delicious as always.”

Rey only pulled him down on top of her, sticking her tongue in his mouth and licking everywhere that tasted like her. When she was satisfied she had cleaned him just as he had cleaned his fingers, she pulled back and pressed a satisfied kiss to his nose. “We have to go.”

“On it, let me go grab a shirt and then we can drop Kylo off at my mom’s.”

Rey immediately jumped up, knowing it still hurt him to talk about his parents house. “I love you,” she sighed, pressing her mouth to his shoulder from behind him.

Ben smiled at her with a tilt of his head. “I love you, too.”

* * *

 

“Do you think they even noticed I was there?” Ben asked on the drive back.

Rey shook her head, laughing. “Not at all. They definitely just fucked.”

“I guess that’s love,” Ben spoke, gripping her steering wheel. She had driven the whole way there, and Ben had decided he would drive the whole way back so they wouldn’t have to stay in a hotel. “Were we ever like that?” he questioned.

Rey thought on it a moment, then nudged his leg with her hand. “We’re like that now.”

“No, we’re not. We’re the much more realistic version of love, Little Bird.” He smiled over at her. “But I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

Rey’s hand on his leg slid higher. “I’ve never told you, but I love when you call me that,” her soft palm rested on top of his ever-growing bulge. He was large and it was obvious when his dick pressed against his jeans. Rey just found it mouth-watering.

“I know,” Ben told her, turning to smirk at her before looking down at her hand on him. “I can tell when your tight little pussy squeezes down on me every time I say it.”

She knew he was teasing her, but she had been thinking about where she could pull the car over and fuck him for hours, and now she just didn’t give a shit. “Fuck it,” she said, quickly unbuckling and leaning over in his lap. “Don’t get in a wreck.”

“What?” He asked frantically when she began pulling down his zipper. “Rey, I definitely will crash if you put your mouth on me.”

“Then pull over, stupid,” she kissed the head of his cock as she pulled it from his boxers. “I trust you.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Ben swung the car over two lanes, slamming on the brakes while holding Rey’s head with one hand, making sure she didn’t hit the dash. As soon as he got the car in park, she took him fully in her mouth, swirling her tongue along his shaft while sliding her closed hand around the parts her mouth couldn’t reach.

Ben was a complete asshole who had literally done nothing to deserve her, but for whatever reason, she had given him a second chance. There was absolutely no reason for her to give him this gift that she was offering on her wet and pink little tongue, but he would accept everything she gave him like a miracle from God.

She hummed around him, and Ben grunted. “You’re so good, baby girl. So, so good.”

He laid- well, more like threw-  his head back against his seat as she bobbed up and down, creating a suction when she got to the head, squeezing tight and rubbing his cock from top to bottom with her hand.

She quickly dipped down, letting the head push against the back of her throat, then pulling up when it made her gag, proceeding to do so four more times before Ben lifted her head up with a hand on her jaw.

He reached down, reclining the seat further back until he was comfortable leaned backwards. “Come sit in my lap,” he told her beseechingly, and Rey immediately pulled down her pants, tossing them in her seat as she climbed onto his thighs and straddled him, reaching down to grab his cock and placing it right at her entrance. “I’ve missed you so much, Little Bird.”

Rey moaned, sinking down on top of him, just holding him there as she adjusted to the stretch. Ben growled out when she barely moved to test the waters, and when she cried piercingly in response to him shifting his hips, he quickly grasped her ass with both hands, lifting her up and dropping her back down, drowning in her and her sweet noises she purred out for him.

He did it again, this time reaching down to feel himself sliding into her. “You’re so beautiful Rey, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

“Ben,” Rey cooed, lifting herself up and leaning her head on his shoulder. “Harder, please. Oh god, faster,” she begged, and Ben would rather die than deny her.

The colossal man held her up with his hands, finger tips digging painfully into her ass, then drove himself up into her with a hard thrust of his hips. Rey bawled into the roof, the sound loud in the vehicle, but Ben’s version of an orchestra. “Are you going to scream for me?” He asked, to which Rey immediately nodded. He began a brutal pace, hammering into her as she bounced on his lap, her breast moving beneath her tank top as she completely lost her mind, his name the only real word to escape her. Ben continued his ruthless speed, but leaned forward to suck her breast into his mouth through her shirt.

“Yes! Fuck me, oh god, make me yours!” Rey dug her nails into his shoulder, Ben’s balls tightening at the feeling. “Ben, Ben, Ben-“

Her pussy made a vice grip around him, and Ben knew she was close. He bit down on her breast, and Rey squealed with pain and pleasure, lifting a hand to press Ben closer to her breast as she began milking him.

He leaned away from her, watching as her eyes closed and her mouth fell open, sweat trickling down her throat and disappearing beneath her shirt. “God, you’re incredible.”

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” she cried, and Ben rammed into her hard, the tip of his cock hitting her cervix, making her cry out harder as he came with a deep groan, his face falling between her breast.

“I love you,” he mumbled back, mind still hazy.

Rey fell forward, panting heavily into his hair, watching the strands blow in the breeze she made. “This means I’m your girlfriend again, right?”

Ben shifted inside of her, making her release a soft curse word before she pulled off of him. “If you want to be.”

Rey slowly slid her pants back on, and Ben slipped himself back into his underwear before zipping his pants up. She smiled up at him, buckling her seatbelt while he readjusted his seat. “I do.”

Ben reached for her hand, using the other to signal he was re-entering the lane to his left. “Good,” he told her, kissing the scar between her thumb and her index finger.

 

* * *

 

Finn’s wedding was beyond beautiful. Of course, it would be, since Rey had helped Rose plan it. Still, it was beyond imaginable.

“This is incredible, isn’t it?” Rey asked Ben as they stood at the reception.

When he didn’t answer, Rey gripped his arm tighter and looked up at him. He was giving her _that look_. “Were you even listening to me?”

“Yes,” he answered immediately, not changing his look. He was incorrigible. They had fucked nearly four times just that _day._ Well, not exactly fucked, but she came four individual times and him twice, which was a lot even for them. “Ben, it’s almost over.” She leaned towards him, smiling when he ducked forward to kiss her deeply before she pulled back. “And then we can go back home and-“

Ben tugged her closer, kissing her passionately before she laughed and pulled back again. “What was that for?”

“You called it home,” he told her, grinning.

Rey smiled back, shrugging her shoulders. “I mean, I live there too, don’t I? Of course it’s home.” She laid her cheek against his arm, watching as Rose went to the front of the room. “Anywhere with you is home, stupid.”

Ben’s grin only widened.

“Can we have all the single ladies come to the front of the room? It’s time for the bouquet toss!” The MC spoke through the mic, and Rey understood now why Rose was at the front.

“Can you believe people still believe in that tradition?” Rey asked, but only received a hum in response from Ben. “It just feels completely ridiculous, but it’s her wedding so whatever makes her feel better.”

“One, two, three!” The MC shouted, and Rey looked over the crowd, seeking out the thrown bouquet in spite of herself. It’s not like she wanted to catch it or anything. Her and Ben had only been back together a year. He would do it when he was ready.

Well, Rey hoped he would.

Mentally shaking her head, she sought out the cliché winner of the bouquet toss, expecting some poor girl to walk away with the bundle of flowers to a boyfriend out of his element, wishing he was watching the game instead of receiving knowing looks.

Except, she couldn’t see it. Didn’t even look like one of the girls had caught it.

Did Rose suck that badly at throwing?

She was still looking for who could have grabbed it when she realized the group of girls were looking in her direction. Rey gazed around, only to find Rose walking towards her. Completely perplexed, Rose raised her hand, bouquet in it held out like an olive branch. Rey cocked her head to the side, but took it nonetheless. “What the fuck?” Rey whispered desperately, but when Rose moved back, Rey saw a familiar yet completely foreign sight of Ben Solo on his knees before her.

Well, on one knee.

Wait, what?

“Ben, what are you-“

“Rey Kenobi, you once asked me if I would stay with you forever,” he reached into his jacket pocket, and Rey felt her knees grow weak. When he pulled his hand out, beneath his large fingers was a box, and when he opened it, a beautiful diamond ring shined back at her like a beacon. “I think it’s about time I gave you an answer. Will you marry me, Little Bird?”

Ben realized after that that his dainty little girlfriend could have been a linebacker in a past life because she tackled him to the floor with ease, showering him with kisses on every surface of his face available. “Yes, stupid! It’s about time you asked!”

 

* * *

 

Ben lay back on the couch, Rey between his legs and Kylo sleeping soundly on the floor beside them. Bens hands trailed her body, but were really focused on one particular area. Rey sighed when he pressed his hands down on her stomach, and she nuzzled further into his touch, rubbing her index finger along the gold band on his third finger.

“Have you thought of any names for her?” Ben asked, letting his hands roam a bit before slipping further down.

Rey sighed, shifting her hips closer to his touch. “Of course,” she responded. “What do you think about Trash Compactor?”

A flick of his finger made her jump, a small moan floating out of her throat. “Not a fucking chance,” Ben responded, working his hand further into her pants where she thankfully wasn’t wearing any underwear. “I’ve thought about one a bit, if you’d like to hear it.”

Rey looked up at him, expression suddenly serious despite his fingers working her into a puddle of pleasure. “Tell me, baby.”

Ben leaned his neck down, his lips kissing her temple as he thrust two fingers into her soaking wet heat, making her stretch out and keen. “Hanna.”

Her desperate hips seeking out a quicker pace, Rey nodded, mind clear enough to understand what they were discussing. “Hanna,” Rey repeated, tasting it on her tongue. “I love it.”

Ben hummed in response, rubbing his throbbing erection into her lower back as he wiggled his fingers within her. “Can I make you cum on my lips now?” He practically implored, rubbing hard on her clit.

Rey nodded, holding her large stomach as she sat up, letting Ben stretch out beneath her before she removed her shorts and climbed up, straddling either side of his head. She quickly gripped the armrests before her, knowing how ferocious he could be when he did that. As expected, Ben pulled her hips down further, positively devouring her and making Rey moan high pitched cries.

“I-I wish I could see you,” Rey half laughed half moaned.

Ben only lifted one hand, rubbing it along her belly above him that was blocking her view.

“Hanna is keeping you innocent,” he murmured between licks.

Rey sighed thrusting her hips until she was fucking his mouth. “We both know the last thing I am is innocent.” Ben groaned at that, and Rey quickly moved one of her hands to where he was currently tinting his pants. Her hand easily slipped beneath the sweatpants, gripping him and spreading his precum along his shaft before creating a pace similar to the one he was making with his tongue.

At a particularly long suck on her clit, Rey began shaking violently above him, her thighs pressing down on his head as she started jerkily moving her hand over him.

A deep grunt came from the chest beneath her ass, and the vibration of it along with his tongue on her made her scream his name before it got stuck in her throat as she came on his tongue, her hand suddenly hot and sticky beneath his sweatpants.

“You’re so fucking hot,” Ben said, sucking a hickey into her inner thigh before scooting her further down him until she was straddling his legs.

Rey got off the couch, standing before him with a dazzling smile. _That smile_. She took off her shirt, throwing it on their coffee table. “Try telling me that when I’m nine months pregnant.”

Unable to resist even if he wanted to, Ben took off his own pants and quickly followed her to the shower. “Only two months away,” he whispered, kissing her neck before moving passed her to turn on the shower and grab all of her favorite bath products from the cabinet. “If you think seeing you swollen with my child is anything less than a turn on for me, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“You’re the worst,” Rey laughed, grabbing their favorite towel from the laundry they had folded earlier that had yet to make it to the linen closet.

Ben grinned from over his shoulder, arms full of flowery smelling bath products, completely domesticated. “I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we've reached our conclusion. I hope I did the characters justice, and thank you all for sticking through this with me. 
> 
> (Song lyrics included is Spirit in the Sky by Norman Greenbaum, movie referenced is the 1989 movie Road House)


End file.
